Sermon 23OCT11
"Love is a Verb!"
Matthew 22:34-46
There was a psychology professor who lived in a neighborhood which had a number of children living in it. He had no children of his own, but he would often see parents disciplining their children, punishing them and perhaps even spanking them and he would say "You should love your children, not punish them". One hot Saturday he was put working on his driveway. He was resurfacing it where cracks and chips had appeared and getting it back into a smooth finish. After working all day in the hot sun, sweat pouring from his brow, he started back to his house to put his tools up and to relax. As he's putting his tools up in his garage he sees put of the corner of his eye this little boy walking through the fresh concrete that he'd worked so hard to get smooth and level. This got him furious. He stormed over to the little boy, grabbed him, and started to spank him. One of his neighbors saw what was going on and called out to the man, "Now doctor, you know you're supposed to love the child not punish him". The professor replied back, "I do love him in the abstract, but NOT in the CONCRETE!"
I think that's one of the problems we have with love. It's easy to love in the abstract, but when it gets into the concrete reality of loving particular people it suddenly becomes very difficult. I always get nervous when I hear someone say "I just love everybody". You could examine that person's life and find they probably aren't measuring up to that declaration of "I just love everybody". It's not easy to love. Some people are very difficult to love. I think this is one reason our Lord has put this is the form of a commandment. The two greatest commandments: "The first is you are to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. The second is like unto it, you are to love your neighbor as yourself." That sums up all the law and the prophets! So, that we love is a commandment.
One of Bartlett's familiar quotations says more on love than anything else. She reads the definitions of love and they range anywhere from some kind of sentimental romantic "love" down to "love is not having to say you're sorry". You don't get much substance put of defining love. Love is something that happens; it's something that you do. In his book "The Practice of Love", Ashley Montegau asked a mother about her child and to define love, but she really doesn't know how to define it she just knows what it is. She may say "it's something that makes the heart leap with joy". He says in his book "you don't have to be a grammarian to know what love is, you just have to have a heart".
We had our grand-daughter over at our house last evening and I know what mothers are talking about; just to have this beautiful child around brings joy to our hearts. I think mothers feel the same thing. But not all of them do, do they? We've heard some horrid stories about children that are mistreated or even killed by one of their parents, or even both parents. The thing about love though is it's something you learn. You were either brought up in a loving home, or you weren't. If you were brought up in a loving home you will, most likely, pass that love on. Human beings were created to love, and to be loved; to receive love and to give love. If somehow we've missed out on learning what love is about we're probably in trouble in our lives in some horrible way.
There was a pastor who had a problem with one particular member of his congregation. This person was born to object. They objected to everything. Anything the Church decided to do, they would object to it; they would find something wrong with it. One day the pastor sat down with a friend and said "I know the Lord says we're supposed to love our enemies and our neighbors, but I don't know how I'm supposed to love this guy". The friend gave him a very wise response "You know, love isn't about fondness. Love isn't about loving someone who's lovable. Christian love is something that you just DO".
You know the "Golden Rule"? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It doesn't say "feel" about others as you would have them "feel" about you. Love is something that we do; it's an "action" word, a verb. If you don't love, you don't do! You can say "I love everyone", then actually hate them by not doing! So often people don't see it the right way.
There was a Chaplain at a Roman Catholic girl's school. He would often have students come to his office for a "chat", but usually it was because there was some problem. So the girls knew if they had a problem they could go to the chaplain. One day this girl named Anne came to the office to chat. After a while she finally admitted to the chaplain what the problem was. She had a friend named Dianne who was on drugs and alcohol, her grades were going down, she was having trouble with her parents, she was loosing her friends, but she was such a good friend to this girl that Anne didn't feel like she could say anything bad to her. Other people were talking about her behind her back and putting her down, and Anne didn't want her to think that even her close friends were turning on her. The chaplain happened to think of something that Dietrich Bonhoeffer said during World War II. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing". We heard from Leviticus today: "reprove your neighbor". If he's messing up reprove him, approach him! Some of the loneliest people in this world are the ones who are dealing with an alcohol or drug addiction, and they KNOW they need help. Your approaching them and talking to them about their problem may raise them up to the point that they seek the help they need. So, make the reprove. The greatest evil in this world is when good people do nothing. Look what horrible things have happened in history (for instance, in Hitler's Germany) and in our world today simply because good people DID NOTHING!
There was an evangelist who also wrote books. He was doing a preaching mission in a Mid Western town. In his books he liked to talk about the important people he'd met in his life. On this occasion he went to dinner that evening after he'd preached with a retired missionary. It was an older man, and the evangelist couldn't even remember his name. Through the evening the old man kept talking about his son Henry. The evangelist was actually getting bored with all this, but the man kept in talking about his son. He told the evangelist how Henry had tried his hand at journalism and failed, but one of Henry's friends had an idea about some new types of magazines. The old man told him "I had $600 dollars left in my life savings, but I gave all that to my son and his friend". The old man then told the evangelist "You may know my son, Henry Luce; he started 'Life', 'Time', and 'Fortune' magazines". The old man, the father was willing to believe in his son's ideas and dreams enough to make the sacrifice of his life savings. He didn't just say "I love my son", he put action, he put money, he invested himself behind his son; and it worked. That doesn't mean it'll always work, but the point is he DID SOMETHING with the love he had for his son.
Have you seen the movie "A Man and A Boy"? I think it got bad reviews, but I've seen it several times cause in like it so much. Hugh Grant plays the lead. It's an English movie, a little bit of a comedy; it's not romantic particularly. At any rate, Hugh Grant plays this individual who says through his lifestyle "I am an island unto myself". We know the reverse of that "No man is an island unto himself". We know the truth and the reality of the fact that no man can really be an island, but he seemed to want to act this way. His father had written some popular song, so he lived off the royalties of that song. He had a very nice apartment, could buy anything he wanted to, could eat where ever he wanted to, and he had all these wonderful things. Then comes along this little boy. He raps on his door and gains entry, the kid hangs around for a little while; but Hugh Grant doesn't really pay him much attention. The problem is the kid has a very bad home life. His mother has attempted suicide, or has talked about it in front of the boy. At any rate, the boy simply doesn't want to go home, so he comes to Hugh Grant's apartment. After a while he starts warming up to having the boy around; he even goes to a department store and buys the boy some very expensive athletic shoes. He says in the movie that when he bought those shoes it gave him a warm feeling in his heart like he was really doing something for this young man. The boy was being bullied quite a bit in school, and in the next scene the boy is standing in the rain at his mother's door and she asks him "where are your new shoes?". Someone had stolen them. Later in the movie Christmas comes around and the boy asks Grant what he does on Christmas. He tells the boy he usually buys a bottle and sits at home watching videos and getting drunk. Well, the boy wanted him to come to his home and spend Christmas with him and his mom. So he does. His mom wasn't happy about this and Hugh Grant almost leaves, but the boy insists "NO, I invited him, I want him here for Christmas". Grant admits later in the movie that sitting around that table he felt the warmth of Christmas, he felt the warmth of family; even though this wasn't the ideal family at all he had the first real Christmas that he'd had since he was a child.
This reminds me of C.S. Lewis' "Four Loves", where he talks about how if you're going to love you first have to be vulnerable. You have to be willing to put your heart out there. You may even have it broken, but if your not willing to do that then you can probably be an island unto yourself; but you wrap yourself up in your selfish images, you have no real relationships with other people. He says it's very much like putting your heart in a casket, in a coffin. It's very safe there. There's no air, there's no disturbance; your heart will not be broken, but your heart WILL change. It will become impenetrable. It will become unreachable. It will become unredeemable.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Render unto God that which is God's
Sermon 16OCT11
"Render unto God that which is God's"
Matthew 22:15-22
I Thessalonians 1:1-10
In one of Jack Benny's skits he was being held up by a robber. The robber with a pistol in his hand demands, "Give me your LIFE or your MONEY!". There was a long pause, and the robber getting quite nervous demands again "I said I want your LIFE or your MONEY!". Jack Benny looks at him and says "I'M THINKING, I'M THINKING!". That story illustrates two of the major decisions we make in our lives: What to do with our life, and what to do with our money.
What we do with our life often depends on how much money we have to decide what do to with, and I must make this parenthetical expression today. Occupy Wall Street; that movement is going across the nation and the world. We live in a nation and in a world where the rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. If you don't think the Bible has a lot to say about the poor and how we are to treat them, then I think you have not read the Bible; particularly the Prophets. This has to be a major concern. This is the seed of revolution! Some people don't even have a decision as to what to do with their money, because they don't have money to do anything with. They don't have food to put on their table for themselves or their children and the roof over their head is being taken away from them. This has to be a major concern. That's not what the sermon is about, but I had to say it. This has to be a major prayerful concern of all of God's people, it HAS to be.
As I said before, two of the major decisions in our lives are what to do with our life and what to do with our money. St. Paul, in our epistle today, spoke to the Thessalonians in a beutiful fashion about how they conducted their Christian lives. They are Holy examples in Macedonia and Achaia and others had heard of how they lived their lives in the Spirit of Christ with joy. Their lives were a Holy example, they were exemplary, it was a beautiful thing to see the way they conducted their lives in Christ. Then we get to the Gospel where, again, the religious authorities are trying to trip Jesus up. "Are we to pay tribute to Caesar?" The New Revised Standard translation says "emperor", which I guess is a little more generic. Our Lord says to them, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's". That sounds simple doesn't it? The image on the coin was that of the emperor, the image on US is God. When you are Baptized and Confirmed you are MARKED, you are sealed as Christ's own FOREVER! That's the image that we bear; the image of Christ, the image of God. Therefore, we owe EVERTHING; our body, our mind, our soul to GOD. And that's not always easy to accomplish, but there it is.
There was a court jester who had gotten in trouble with his Caliph in Baghdad, but during his time of service he had entertained his Caliph beautifully and given him many laughs and so on. Somehow though he had become cross wise with the Caliph, so the Caliph said to him "I am going to demand your life, but since you have served me well in the past and brought me so much laughter I'm going to let you decide how you are going to die". So the jester responds to him "Dear Caliph, if it is possible I would like to die of old age". We don't always have a choice in how we are to die, do we? We do have a choice in how we are to live though. Remember those two major decisions we have; what we are going to do with our life, and entailed in that is what we are going to do with our possessions.
There was a family that had it worked out quite nicely; that the man was, as it should be, the head of the household. Therefore he was to make all the major decisions and his wife made the minor decisions. So the man worried about the "big stuff" like American Foriegn Policy, and the wife decided where they were going to live and how they were going to spend their money. I don't know about your household, but in ours that's how it works; my wife makes those "minor" decisions while the "major" decisions are left up to me. Perhaps that's the way it should be, she's certainly better at the financial decisions. Sometimes I slip up and make unwise monetary decisions, but that's another story. Anyway, those decisions about our life and money follow suite together.
Luciano Pavarotti, the great operatic tenor, had a major decision to make about his life. He was good at two things, singing and soccer. What's interesting is his mother wanted him to be a soccer coach, and his father wanted him to sing. You would think it would be the other way around. He went to a teacher's college and graduated, was taught by one of the finest tenors of his day. The time came though that he had to make a decision about what he was going to do with his life. He went to his dad and told him "dad, I don't know what to do". His dad told him "son, you cannot sit between two chairs. If you try you're going to fall to the floor. You are going to have to decide which chair you are going to sit in." That's reminiscent of the words our Lord put to us: "I put before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose LIFE." Pavarotti chose to sing, and the blessing and the wonder that he was to the world of music is, perhaps, unsurpassed. Obviously he sat in the right chair.
Sören Kirkegard, the father of the existentialist movement also had a decision to make. He really would have preferred to be a father of another kind. He was engaged to a fine young lady, Regina Oleson. Early on though he broke off the engagement, because he realized his life had to be committed to writing, to philosophy, and to theology. He was going contrary to the philosophy and theology of his day in his expression of existentialism. He was saying the individual is of supreme importance; that every individual is at the center of God's decision making. That we all have to make our decision. So, Kirkegard made his decision and did not marry. He worked feverishly writing all his life and died at the young age of 42. In making the decision he realized that he would be going contrary to the thoughts of his day, and that if he had a family they would be exposed to the gossip and hatred of his critics. So his decision was for the benefit of the family that he "might" have had. He went on to talk about the importance of decision making; you decide for one thing, and therefore you do not decide for something else.
There's an "either/or" involved in our decision making, and we never know what exactly is the "right" decision. There's something called "cognitive dissonance"; it's when we make a decision and then don't know if we made the right choice. One that comes to mind is something I haven't had to do in a long time, and hope to never do again. Buying a NEW CAR. You go to the showroom, pick out this shiny new car, drive it home, and you're thrilled. Then you stay up all night wondering if you made the right decision, if you can make the payments, could I have gotten along with that old jalopy of mine. You experience cognitive dissonance. Kirkegard talked about that kind of thing; what you decide is what you will be, what you don't decide is what you won't be. He used a beautiful expression for that called "Leap of Faith". You've heard that expression. I remember hearing that back in seminary and it left a great impression on me.
An example of that comes from Antichous Epiphanies, who was a successor to Alexander the Great and wanted to occupy Egypt. The only problem was to do that he had to fight the Roman Legions. Before the battle took place, he and the Roman General had a conference to talk about what was about to happen. Antichous wanted to think about it, so they conversed for quite a while. Finally the Roman General drew a circle in the sand around Antichous and told him, "before you leave that circle I want you to make your decision". Make your Leap of Faith, that's a difficult thing to do.
Thomas Barkley was a marvelous Presbyterian missionary in Taiwan. Early on in his life he made his decision to follow Christ. At the age of 16 he was at the university of Glasgow. While he was there he wrote a statement out and titled it "My Decision". His decision was to give everything he had; his body, his possessions, his mind. Everything that he had he said "I commit to God". On every birthday from then until the age of 85, when he died, he would sign that commitment. This was found among his papers after his death and it had grown quite yellow with age. So, he had said to God: "I give you everything that I have", at the end of the statement he said "Your will be done, not mine."
"Render unto God that which is God's"
Matthew 22:15-22
I Thessalonians 1:1-10
In one of Jack Benny's skits he was being held up by a robber. The robber with a pistol in his hand demands, "Give me your LIFE or your MONEY!". There was a long pause, and the robber getting quite nervous demands again "I said I want your LIFE or your MONEY!". Jack Benny looks at him and says "I'M THINKING, I'M THINKING!". That story illustrates two of the major decisions we make in our lives: What to do with our life, and what to do with our money.
What we do with our life often depends on how much money we have to decide what do to with, and I must make this parenthetical expression today. Occupy Wall Street; that movement is going across the nation and the world. We live in a nation and in a world where the rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. If you don't think the Bible has a lot to say about the poor and how we are to treat them, then I think you have not read the Bible; particularly the Prophets. This has to be a major concern. This is the seed of revolution! Some people don't even have a decision as to what to do with their money, because they don't have money to do anything with. They don't have food to put on their table for themselves or their children and the roof over their head is being taken away from them. This has to be a major concern. That's not what the sermon is about, but I had to say it. This has to be a major prayerful concern of all of God's people, it HAS to be.
As I said before, two of the major decisions in our lives are what to do with our life and what to do with our money. St. Paul, in our epistle today, spoke to the Thessalonians in a beutiful fashion about how they conducted their Christian lives. They are Holy examples in Macedonia and Achaia and others had heard of how they lived their lives in the Spirit of Christ with joy. Their lives were a Holy example, they were exemplary, it was a beautiful thing to see the way they conducted their lives in Christ. Then we get to the Gospel where, again, the religious authorities are trying to trip Jesus up. "Are we to pay tribute to Caesar?" The New Revised Standard translation says "emperor", which I guess is a little more generic. Our Lord says to them, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's". That sounds simple doesn't it? The image on the coin was that of the emperor, the image on US is God. When you are Baptized and Confirmed you are MARKED, you are sealed as Christ's own FOREVER! That's the image that we bear; the image of Christ, the image of God. Therefore, we owe EVERTHING; our body, our mind, our soul to GOD. And that's not always easy to accomplish, but there it is.
There was a court jester who had gotten in trouble with his Caliph in Baghdad, but during his time of service he had entertained his Caliph beautifully and given him many laughs and so on. Somehow though he had become cross wise with the Caliph, so the Caliph said to him "I am going to demand your life, but since you have served me well in the past and brought me so much laughter I'm going to let you decide how you are going to die". So the jester responds to him "Dear Caliph, if it is possible I would like to die of old age". We don't always have a choice in how we are to die, do we? We do have a choice in how we are to live though. Remember those two major decisions we have; what we are going to do with our life, and entailed in that is what we are going to do with our possessions.
There was a family that had it worked out quite nicely; that the man was, as it should be, the head of the household. Therefore he was to make all the major decisions and his wife made the minor decisions. So the man worried about the "big stuff" like American Foriegn Policy, and the wife decided where they were going to live and how they were going to spend their money. I don't know about your household, but in ours that's how it works; my wife makes those "minor" decisions while the "major" decisions are left up to me. Perhaps that's the way it should be, she's certainly better at the financial decisions. Sometimes I slip up and make unwise monetary decisions, but that's another story. Anyway, those decisions about our life and money follow suite together.
Luciano Pavarotti, the great operatic tenor, had a major decision to make about his life. He was good at two things, singing and soccer. What's interesting is his mother wanted him to be a soccer coach, and his father wanted him to sing. You would think it would be the other way around. He went to a teacher's college and graduated, was taught by one of the finest tenors of his day. The time came though that he had to make a decision about what he was going to do with his life. He went to his dad and told him "dad, I don't know what to do". His dad told him "son, you cannot sit between two chairs. If you try you're going to fall to the floor. You are going to have to decide which chair you are going to sit in." That's reminiscent of the words our Lord put to us: "I put before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose LIFE." Pavarotti chose to sing, and the blessing and the wonder that he was to the world of music is, perhaps, unsurpassed. Obviously he sat in the right chair.
Sören Kirkegard, the father of the existentialist movement also had a decision to make. He really would have preferred to be a father of another kind. He was engaged to a fine young lady, Regina Oleson. Early on though he broke off the engagement, because he realized his life had to be committed to writing, to philosophy, and to theology. He was going contrary to the philosophy and theology of his day in his expression of existentialism. He was saying the individual is of supreme importance; that every individual is at the center of God's decision making. That we all have to make our decision. So, Kirkegard made his decision and did not marry. He worked feverishly writing all his life and died at the young age of 42. In making the decision he realized that he would be going contrary to the thoughts of his day, and that if he had a family they would be exposed to the gossip and hatred of his critics. So his decision was for the benefit of the family that he "might" have had. He went on to talk about the importance of decision making; you decide for one thing, and therefore you do not decide for something else.
There's an "either/or" involved in our decision making, and we never know what exactly is the "right" decision. There's something called "cognitive dissonance"; it's when we make a decision and then don't know if we made the right choice. One that comes to mind is something I haven't had to do in a long time, and hope to never do again. Buying a NEW CAR. You go to the showroom, pick out this shiny new car, drive it home, and you're thrilled. Then you stay up all night wondering if you made the right decision, if you can make the payments, could I have gotten along with that old jalopy of mine. You experience cognitive dissonance. Kirkegard talked about that kind of thing; what you decide is what you will be, what you don't decide is what you won't be. He used a beautiful expression for that called "Leap of Faith". You've heard that expression. I remember hearing that back in seminary and it left a great impression on me.
An example of that comes from Antichous Epiphanies, who was a successor to Alexander the Great and wanted to occupy Egypt. The only problem was to do that he had to fight the Roman Legions. Before the battle took place, he and the Roman General had a conference to talk about what was about to happen. Antichous wanted to think about it, so they conversed for quite a while. Finally the Roman General drew a circle in the sand around Antichous and told him, "before you leave that circle I want you to make your decision". Make your Leap of Faith, that's a difficult thing to do.
Thomas Barkley was a marvelous Presbyterian missionary in Taiwan. Early on in his life he made his decision to follow Christ. At the age of 16 he was at the university of Glasgow. While he was there he wrote a statement out and titled it "My Decision". His decision was to give everything he had; his body, his possessions, his mind. Everything that he had he said "I commit to God". On every birthday from then until the age of 85, when he died, he would sign that commitment. This was found among his papers after his death and it had grown quite yellow with age. So, he had said to God: "I give you everything that I have", at the end of the statement he said "Your will be done, not mine."
Monday, October 10, 2011
Take, Eat, Be Filled With God's Grace.
Sermon 9OCT11
"Take, Eat, be filled with God's Grace."
Matthew 22:1-14
The symbol or image of the "heavenly banquet" is found in both the Old and New Testament. In the Old Testament it seems to be talking about some future bliss when God's Kingdom would be revealed and realized, but when we get to the New Testament it's more of what we would call "realized eschatology". That has to do with somehow the future being present to us, and this is what Jesus is presenting to us in today's parable about the wedding banquet that's been prepared. There are those who find excuses, don't they, not to come. Benjamin Franklin once observed that those who are good at excuses are usually good for nothing else. So, these people were not worthy according to Jesus to come to the wedding banquet because they had refused the invitation, they had refused to come. So it's a judgement, as the parables we've heard the last few weeks have been, against the religious establishment of Jesus' day who refuse to receive the Christ; they refuse to come to the banquet. We find now the invitation is extended to the good and the bad by grace, it's a free gift. "You! Come and join in the wedding banquet". This is a parable of justice, but also a parable of grace.
There was a gourmand who had heard through the gourmet food "grape vine" that there was being served in a New York City restaurant a dish that he had been wanting very badly to try. The problem was that he lived in France, but this wasn't going to stop him from getting to this wonderful dish that he had been longing to try. So, he called the airport to book a flight, but there were no flights. All the flights to New York were full. Even this couldn't stop him though; he arranged flight on a private jet and scheduled a driver to meet him at the airport in New York. So he boards his chartered jet, flies to New York, meets the driver who drops him off right in front of the restaurant, he rushes from the car to the door and pulls on the door. The door won't open! He can see people inside dining and says to himself "I guess they've served their last meal of the day. I've missed out". So he left very cast down, crying because he wasn't going to get to try this wonderful dish that he had gone to so much trouble to locate. The problem is he didn't see that on the door was a sign that read "Please Push". That's how we are so often with God's Grace, the free gift that he offers us. Somehow we find it unbelievable, it's beyond our imagination. Somehow we refuse the invitation that is clearly before us, "Please Push, come on in!" God's Grace is freely extended to us, but somehow we have a way of refusing it and we miss out on the feast.
There was a missionary in Japan during the second world war who had been captured and was being marched to a new prison. As he went along, being elderly, he realized his mission in Japan was almost over anyway and he begged the guard who was marching along beside him to "Please let me fall into the ditch and die in peace". The guard says "MARCH ON!" Going a ways further he asks again to be allowed to fall by the side of the path to die, and again the guard says "MARCH!" Again a third time he pleads with the guard. This time the guard leans over to him and tells him, "We are almost to my grandmothers house, MARCH ON!" The missionary was quite perplexed by this and wondering what was going on here. When they neared the grandmothers house they stopped to take a break and the guard leaves and comes back with a hot potato I his hand. He reaches out and pushes it toward the missionary and says "Take, Eat". Then the guard says again "MARCH ON!" You may not think of a hot potato being a banquet or anything like that, but when I heard this legend I thought of the movie "Dr. Shavargo" and how on the train the peasants were boiling potatoes, after the movie I went home and had a baked potato because it sounded so good. The point being that the Grace that God puts before us in the time of our need may not seem like a "future heavenly banquet" or anything quite like that at all, but God's Grace is always available to us. We just have to reach out and accept it. Take, Eat, be filled with God's Grace.
There is a legend about a fisherman whose name was Aaron. He lived on a river, and labored very hard at his fishing. He was heading home one day really worn out, but Aaron was a dreamer. He dreamed about being wealthy. As he was walking along the way he stumbled upon a leather pouch that was kicked up by his foot, so he reached down picked it up and opened it. It appeared to be full of pebbles. He begins to daydream while casting these "pebbles" into the river. He said to himself "If I were rich my wife and I could have a big house", and he cast another stone. "If we were rich we could have servants", and cast another stone. "If we were rich we could dine sumptuously everyday on wonderful rich foods and vintage wine. We could live so well IF I were ONLY rich". He reaches into the pouch and pulls out the last stone as the sun comes out from behind a cloud and casts a sparkle out of the "pebble" and he realizes he has a valuable gemstone in his hand. In the bag were all these valuable gems which could have made him wealthy, but he's cast them into the river! How often in our dreams of wealth or success or whatever it is do we miss the fact that God's Grace is there for our needs? It's God's Grace that can fulfill us and make us joyous in the faith that we have.
There was a rather questionable "mystic" that lived in Oregon who got deported and left behind 90 Rolls Royces. That's a lot isn't it? He could probably compete with Jay Leno! He did leave one interesting saying: "Before, we are wise. After, we are wise. In between, we are otherwise". I think he had to mean that before we approach some day or some event in our lives we are rehearsing what we're going to do or say that day or at that event. Then we get to the event and do "otherwise". After the event is over we can be wise about it again, and think about what we could have said or done. The fact is though we didn't do it! That "in between" time is a problem time, isn't it?
Let me get a little personal. We had a cousin's gathering Saturday at our home. We decided we ought to get together before the next funeral, so we did. My family, by the way, is very religious; on one side Methodist and on the other side Baptist and they're there every time the Church doors are open, they're very observant of their faith. There were a couple of the cousins there I was a little concerned about in this regard. One of the cousins had married the son of a General from a Latin American country and had gone off and lived a pretty full life possession wise and so on. I performed the wedding between their daughter and new son-in-law in Dallas, before then they were in California getting their PHD's in mathematics when they asked me to perform the ceremony. I asked them to go to a Church there in California to get pre-marital counseling and so forth and see what happens. Well, they chose to go to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. They LOVED it! Anyway, he called me up a few years ago to tell me he was going into seminary to become an Episcopal Priest. He's a Deacon right now, and in January I believe he'll be ordained a Priest. Maurice and Barbara (his father and mother in law) are both just confused by all this, they don't understand what's going on.
The other cousin who was there who I had been worried about was Jay. He had never been in the habit of going to Church, although his parents were going all the time. But this last Saturday he started talking to me about the Bible and it caught me off guard, I was wondering what was going on. He told me he had been reading a lot (about 27 books about religion, faith, and the Bible), and I told him how wonderful I thought that was. I asked him what had happened, and he told me that he had been without a job, he was in-between and didn't have anything else to do... "So I read the Bible and found out there were some wonderful things in there!" Then he started reading other books and he's going to a Bible study. WONDERFUL! In between he did something with the in between and hopefully Maurice and Barbara will find themselves in the in between and discover their faith as well. So, in the beginning we're wise. In the end we're wise. In between so often we're other wise.
"Take, Eat, be filled with God's Grace."
Matthew 22:1-14
The symbol or image of the "heavenly banquet" is found in both the Old and New Testament. In the Old Testament it seems to be talking about some future bliss when God's Kingdom would be revealed and realized, but when we get to the New Testament it's more of what we would call "realized eschatology". That has to do with somehow the future being present to us, and this is what Jesus is presenting to us in today's parable about the wedding banquet that's been prepared. There are those who find excuses, don't they, not to come. Benjamin Franklin once observed that those who are good at excuses are usually good for nothing else. So, these people were not worthy according to Jesus to come to the wedding banquet because they had refused the invitation, they had refused to come. So it's a judgement, as the parables we've heard the last few weeks have been, against the religious establishment of Jesus' day who refuse to receive the Christ; they refuse to come to the banquet. We find now the invitation is extended to the good and the bad by grace, it's a free gift. "You! Come and join in the wedding banquet". This is a parable of justice, but also a parable of grace.
There was a gourmand who had heard through the gourmet food "grape vine" that there was being served in a New York City restaurant a dish that he had been wanting very badly to try. The problem was that he lived in France, but this wasn't going to stop him from getting to this wonderful dish that he had been longing to try. So, he called the airport to book a flight, but there were no flights. All the flights to New York were full. Even this couldn't stop him though; he arranged flight on a private jet and scheduled a driver to meet him at the airport in New York. So he boards his chartered jet, flies to New York, meets the driver who drops him off right in front of the restaurant, he rushes from the car to the door and pulls on the door. The door won't open! He can see people inside dining and says to himself "I guess they've served their last meal of the day. I've missed out". So he left very cast down, crying because he wasn't going to get to try this wonderful dish that he had gone to so much trouble to locate. The problem is he didn't see that on the door was a sign that read "Please Push". That's how we are so often with God's Grace, the free gift that he offers us. Somehow we find it unbelievable, it's beyond our imagination. Somehow we refuse the invitation that is clearly before us, "Please Push, come on in!" God's Grace is freely extended to us, but somehow we have a way of refusing it and we miss out on the feast.
There was a missionary in Japan during the second world war who had been captured and was being marched to a new prison. As he went along, being elderly, he realized his mission in Japan was almost over anyway and he begged the guard who was marching along beside him to "Please let me fall into the ditch and die in peace". The guard says "MARCH ON!" Going a ways further he asks again to be allowed to fall by the side of the path to die, and again the guard says "MARCH!" Again a third time he pleads with the guard. This time the guard leans over to him and tells him, "We are almost to my grandmothers house, MARCH ON!" The missionary was quite perplexed by this and wondering what was going on here. When they neared the grandmothers house they stopped to take a break and the guard leaves and comes back with a hot potato I his hand. He reaches out and pushes it toward the missionary and says "Take, Eat". Then the guard says again "MARCH ON!" You may not think of a hot potato being a banquet or anything like that, but when I heard this legend I thought of the movie "Dr. Shavargo" and how on the train the peasants were boiling potatoes, after the movie I went home and had a baked potato because it sounded so good. The point being that the Grace that God puts before us in the time of our need may not seem like a "future heavenly banquet" or anything quite like that at all, but God's Grace is always available to us. We just have to reach out and accept it. Take, Eat, be filled with God's Grace.
There is a legend about a fisherman whose name was Aaron. He lived on a river, and labored very hard at his fishing. He was heading home one day really worn out, but Aaron was a dreamer. He dreamed about being wealthy. As he was walking along the way he stumbled upon a leather pouch that was kicked up by his foot, so he reached down picked it up and opened it. It appeared to be full of pebbles. He begins to daydream while casting these "pebbles" into the river. He said to himself "If I were rich my wife and I could have a big house", and he cast another stone. "If we were rich we could have servants", and cast another stone. "If we were rich we could dine sumptuously everyday on wonderful rich foods and vintage wine. We could live so well IF I were ONLY rich". He reaches into the pouch and pulls out the last stone as the sun comes out from behind a cloud and casts a sparkle out of the "pebble" and he realizes he has a valuable gemstone in his hand. In the bag were all these valuable gems which could have made him wealthy, but he's cast them into the river! How often in our dreams of wealth or success or whatever it is do we miss the fact that God's Grace is there for our needs? It's God's Grace that can fulfill us and make us joyous in the faith that we have.
There was a rather questionable "mystic" that lived in Oregon who got deported and left behind 90 Rolls Royces. That's a lot isn't it? He could probably compete with Jay Leno! He did leave one interesting saying: "Before, we are wise. After, we are wise. In between, we are otherwise". I think he had to mean that before we approach some day or some event in our lives we are rehearsing what we're going to do or say that day or at that event. Then we get to the event and do "otherwise". After the event is over we can be wise about it again, and think about what we could have said or done. The fact is though we didn't do it! That "in between" time is a problem time, isn't it?
Let me get a little personal. We had a cousin's gathering Saturday at our home. We decided we ought to get together before the next funeral, so we did. My family, by the way, is very religious; on one side Methodist and on the other side Baptist and they're there every time the Church doors are open, they're very observant of their faith. There were a couple of the cousins there I was a little concerned about in this regard. One of the cousins had married the son of a General from a Latin American country and had gone off and lived a pretty full life possession wise and so on. I performed the wedding between their daughter and new son-in-law in Dallas, before then they were in California getting their PHD's in mathematics when they asked me to perform the ceremony. I asked them to go to a Church there in California to get pre-marital counseling and so forth and see what happens. Well, they chose to go to Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. They LOVED it! Anyway, he called me up a few years ago to tell me he was going into seminary to become an Episcopal Priest. He's a Deacon right now, and in January I believe he'll be ordained a Priest. Maurice and Barbara (his father and mother in law) are both just confused by all this, they don't understand what's going on.
The other cousin who was there who I had been worried about was Jay. He had never been in the habit of going to Church, although his parents were going all the time. But this last Saturday he started talking to me about the Bible and it caught me off guard, I was wondering what was going on. He told me he had been reading a lot (about 27 books about religion, faith, and the Bible), and I told him how wonderful I thought that was. I asked him what had happened, and he told me that he had been without a job, he was in-between and didn't have anything else to do... "So I read the Bible and found out there were some wonderful things in there!" Then he started reading other books and he's going to a Bible study. WONDERFUL! In between he did something with the in between and hopefully Maurice and Barbara will find themselves in the in between and discover their faith as well. So, in the beginning we're wise. In the end we're wise. In between so often we're other wise.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
We Reserve the Right to Accept EVERYONE!
Sermon Summary 2OCT11
"We reserve the right to accept EVERYONE"
Matthew 21:33-46
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." We all know how untrue that saying is. It probably was the result of a parent whose child had been hurt by something that had been said about them, and this is some consolation to the child as wrong as we know it to be. Home is a place where we have to be accepted isn't it? You go home they have to accept you, but we all experience rejection in the world and today's Gospel is about acceptance and about rejection.
Each year 4,500 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 commit suicide, and a lot of that is the result of bullying. It's a major problem in our schools and schools are having to deal with this increasing problem of bullying. A lot of it has to do with the Internet and so on which multiplies the problem, but this thing they call "sexting" really creates a lot of problems for young people. But, it is something that we have to be concerned about and it revolves around this same acceptance or rejection. Now if you go to school and you're a little different they're very likely going to pick on you. This one boy seemed to be handling it quite well; he was a high school student in Buffalo New York, and he was a gay young man, a gay teen (they are much more likely to commit suicide than the "normal" population of the schools). He seemed to be handling the bullying quite well, he even developed this t-shirt campaign (you may have seen or heard about) that said simply "IT WILL GET BETTER". You know, just hang in there things will get better... Then, a couple of weeks ago he was found dead near his home in Buffalo; he had committed suicide. I saw his parents the other day on the "Today Show" and his mother was wearing one of his t-shirts "IT WILL GET BETTER". She said her and her husband felt it necessary to keep the campaign going to encourage other gay teens that it WILL get BETTER.
Of course other students are victims of bullying as well, when I was in school "coodie detectors" (a folded piece of paper people would rub in your hair and then unfold to reveal a message of whether or not you had "coodies") was one of the popular forms of bullying. Today it's become "cyber-bullying", ganging up on someone on the internet and spreading rumors and gossip about them to the point that a young woman's reputation can be ruined and as a result SHE commits suicide. It's a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE thing and it's not just the young people. There was another report on the "Today Show" dealing with a small town (about 4,000 people) called Mountain Grove where texting and the Internet had become a real problem because it was bearing gossip. Gossip about the local townspeople, and in that small of a town everyone knows who you are. There was a rumor started on the Internet about this older woman in town saying that she was running a "sex club". Then there was yet another rumor about one of the young women in town who was interviewed and she said "you know, it's something you just can't get away from. It's always out there in cyber space and you can't get away from it." So she said that she was moving because she just couldn't continue to live in that town any longer.
There was a young man who was applying to colleges and he had just gotten a letter of rejection from the Dean of Admissions. So he wrote a letter back to this particular Dean:
"Dear Dean,
I just received your letter of rejection to my application. I'm sorry to tell you that I cannot accept it. I've been rejected by four other colleges already, and that is beyond my limit. Therefore, I must reject your rejection. I hope this is not a great inconvenience to you, but I am planning on showing up for class registration and orientation on September the 18th."
He seemed to have a healthy way of dealing with his rejection, but we don't always do that, do we?
Of course, one of the most horrible rejections is loosing a job. How do you feed your family? How do you clothe them? How will you house them? You may loose your car, your house, your possessions all because you lost your job. There are too many people in this country today (and even throughout the world) who have lost their jobs, and that's a horrible rejection to have. There was this man who got up one Friday morning and announced to his wife "I'm going to work today and I'm going to ask my boss for a raise. I really think I deserve it." Well, toward the end of the day he finally worked up the courage to go into the boss' office and ask for the raise. Much to his surprise the boss said "You know what? I agree with you, it's time you had a raise and I'm going to give you one." So the man goes home very happy that day. As he walks into the house he notices the dining room has been set, candles lit, napkins beautifully folded, the finest china and silverware they owned were laid out on the table waiting for a feast... everything looked beautiful. He goes into the kitchen and announces to his wife "I GOT THE RAISE!" So they go into the dining room and sit down for a festive dinner. When he sits down at the table he notices a card folded and laying on his plate, he opens it and reads: "Dear, I knew you were going to get the raise. You deserved it, and these things are to show you that I love you." After they finished a festive and delicious main course the wife goes into the kitchen to bring desert and the husband finds another card that had fallen out of her pocket that read: "Dear, I'm sorry that you didn't get the raise. I know you deserve it, and I do these things to show you that I love you." So she was prepared to go either way. I think God deals with us in that same open fashion. You know our God is not a God of rejection, but of love and forgiveness and acceptance, and the prayer that we heard today had to do with those most tragic words we hear during Holy Week "He came unto his own, and His own received Him not." If anyone ever experienced rejection it was Jesus the Christ. Today's parable had to do with the vineyard being given over to "new tenants", and the early Church saw itself as being the "new tenants" of the Old Testament promises and the gift of the Christ as he comes to us in the New Testament and in the Church of Jesus Christ. So it's all about acceptance and not rejection.
There was a young Private in the Army who was in the habit of kneeling by his rack every night to say his prayers. Well, his Sergeant found this to be a ridiculous practice and would chide him for saying his prayers every night like that. One evening the Sergeant came in drunk and found the Private kneeling beside his rack praying, so he kicked the Private across the room. The next morning the Sergeant woke up only to find his boots at the foot of his rack and they had been meticulously polished to a fine gloss. So he walked over to the young Private and said "tell me something about this God of yours". The point is we go on with our witness even though we think we're being rejected having faith that out of the way we receive rejection, the way we handle the rejection might cause someone to come by faith to the God we know...this wonderful God of forgiveness and love.
Did you know today is Worldwide Communion Sunday? So many Churches that don't normally have Communion in their services every Sunday are having Communion today throughout the world. So we think of the rich and the powerful, the poor and the powerless, those people from every race and nation that come to the Lord's Table. It's the one place where we come no matter what our differences are, and we find ourselves in the hands of a loving and accepting God.
Out there in the world we may be broken by the rejection we experience. We know our God uses brokeness, doesn't he? The soil has to be broken before the grain can be planted. The clouds have to be broken before they can pour out the rain upon the vineyard. The grain has to be broken and ground before it can be made into bread. The grapes have to be crushed before they can be made into wine. So we come to the Table of the Lord in our brokeness and through the One who was broken and then Resurrected we find ourselves. Even though broken, there is the power of God to put us back together and make us whole again. We have those beautiful words from today's Gospel "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone". Even though we're by the world rejected, we are by God accepted and made part of that cornerstone which is Jesus Christ.
There was a sign in front of a Church in New Jersey that read simply: "We reserve the right to accept EVERYONE".
"We reserve the right to accept EVERYONE"
Matthew 21:33-46
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." We all know how untrue that saying is. It probably was the result of a parent whose child had been hurt by something that had been said about them, and this is some consolation to the child as wrong as we know it to be. Home is a place where we have to be accepted isn't it? You go home they have to accept you, but we all experience rejection in the world and today's Gospel is about acceptance and about rejection.
Each year 4,500 young people between the ages of 10 and 24 commit suicide, and a lot of that is the result of bullying. It's a major problem in our schools and schools are having to deal with this increasing problem of bullying. A lot of it has to do with the Internet and so on which multiplies the problem, but this thing they call "sexting" really creates a lot of problems for young people. But, it is something that we have to be concerned about and it revolves around this same acceptance or rejection. Now if you go to school and you're a little different they're very likely going to pick on you. This one boy seemed to be handling it quite well; he was a high school student in Buffalo New York, and he was a gay young man, a gay teen (they are much more likely to commit suicide than the "normal" population of the schools). He seemed to be handling the bullying quite well, he even developed this t-shirt campaign (you may have seen or heard about) that said simply "IT WILL GET BETTER". You know, just hang in there things will get better... Then, a couple of weeks ago he was found dead near his home in Buffalo; he had committed suicide. I saw his parents the other day on the "Today Show" and his mother was wearing one of his t-shirts "IT WILL GET BETTER". She said her and her husband felt it necessary to keep the campaign going to encourage other gay teens that it WILL get BETTER.
Of course other students are victims of bullying as well, when I was in school "coodie detectors" (a folded piece of paper people would rub in your hair and then unfold to reveal a message of whether or not you had "coodies") was one of the popular forms of bullying. Today it's become "cyber-bullying", ganging up on someone on the internet and spreading rumors and gossip about them to the point that a young woman's reputation can be ruined and as a result SHE commits suicide. It's a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE thing and it's not just the young people. There was another report on the "Today Show" dealing with a small town (about 4,000 people) called Mountain Grove where texting and the Internet had become a real problem because it was bearing gossip. Gossip about the local townspeople, and in that small of a town everyone knows who you are. There was a rumor started on the Internet about this older woman in town saying that she was running a "sex club". Then there was yet another rumor about one of the young women in town who was interviewed and she said "you know, it's something you just can't get away from. It's always out there in cyber space and you can't get away from it." So she said that she was moving because she just couldn't continue to live in that town any longer.
There was a young man who was applying to colleges and he had just gotten a letter of rejection from the Dean of Admissions. So he wrote a letter back to this particular Dean:
"Dear Dean,
I just received your letter of rejection to my application. I'm sorry to tell you that I cannot accept it. I've been rejected by four other colleges already, and that is beyond my limit. Therefore, I must reject your rejection. I hope this is not a great inconvenience to you, but I am planning on showing up for class registration and orientation on September the 18th."
He seemed to have a healthy way of dealing with his rejection, but we don't always do that, do we?
Of course, one of the most horrible rejections is loosing a job. How do you feed your family? How do you clothe them? How will you house them? You may loose your car, your house, your possessions all because you lost your job. There are too many people in this country today (and even throughout the world) who have lost their jobs, and that's a horrible rejection to have. There was this man who got up one Friday morning and announced to his wife "I'm going to work today and I'm going to ask my boss for a raise. I really think I deserve it." Well, toward the end of the day he finally worked up the courage to go into the boss' office and ask for the raise. Much to his surprise the boss said "You know what? I agree with you, it's time you had a raise and I'm going to give you one." So the man goes home very happy that day. As he walks into the house he notices the dining room has been set, candles lit, napkins beautifully folded, the finest china and silverware they owned were laid out on the table waiting for a feast... everything looked beautiful. He goes into the kitchen and announces to his wife "I GOT THE RAISE!" So they go into the dining room and sit down for a festive dinner. When he sits down at the table he notices a card folded and laying on his plate, he opens it and reads: "Dear, I knew you were going to get the raise. You deserved it, and these things are to show you that I love you." After they finished a festive and delicious main course the wife goes into the kitchen to bring desert and the husband finds another card that had fallen out of her pocket that read: "Dear, I'm sorry that you didn't get the raise. I know you deserve it, and I do these things to show you that I love you." So she was prepared to go either way. I think God deals with us in that same open fashion. You know our God is not a God of rejection, but of love and forgiveness and acceptance, and the prayer that we heard today had to do with those most tragic words we hear during Holy Week "He came unto his own, and His own received Him not." If anyone ever experienced rejection it was Jesus the Christ. Today's parable had to do with the vineyard being given over to "new tenants", and the early Church saw itself as being the "new tenants" of the Old Testament promises and the gift of the Christ as he comes to us in the New Testament and in the Church of Jesus Christ. So it's all about acceptance and not rejection.
There was a young Private in the Army who was in the habit of kneeling by his rack every night to say his prayers. Well, his Sergeant found this to be a ridiculous practice and would chide him for saying his prayers every night like that. One evening the Sergeant came in drunk and found the Private kneeling beside his rack praying, so he kicked the Private across the room. The next morning the Sergeant woke up only to find his boots at the foot of his rack and they had been meticulously polished to a fine gloss. So he walked over to the young Private and said "tell me something about this God of yours". The point is we go on with our witness even though we think we're being rejected having faith that out of the way we receive rejection, the way we handle the rejection might cause someone to come by faith to the God we know...this wonderful God of forgiveness and love.
Did you know today is Worldwide Communion Sunday? So many Churches that don't normally have Communion in their services every Sunday are having Communion today throughout the world. So we think of the rich and the powerful, the poor and the powerless, those people from every race and nation that come to the Lord's Table. It's the one place where we come no matter what our differences are, and we find ourselves in the hands of a loving and accepting God.
Out there in the world we may be broken by the rejection we experience. We know our God uses brokeness, doesn't he? The soil has to be broken before the grain can be planted. The clouds have to be broken before they can pour out the rain upon the vineyard. The grain has to be broken and ground before it can be made into bread. The grapes have to be crushed before they can be made into wine. So we come to the Table of the Lord in our brokeness and through the One who was broken and then Resurrected we find ourselves. Even though broken, there is the power of God to put us back together and make us whole again. We have those beautiful words from today's Gospel "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone". Even though we're by the world rejected, we are by God accepted and made part of that cornerstone which is Jesus Christ.
There was a sign in front of a Church in New Jersey that read simply: "We reserve the right to accept EVERYONE".
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