Sermons and thoughts on faith on Scripture from my time at Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Falls Church Presbyterian Church, plus sermons and postings from "Pastor James," my blog while pastor at Boulevard Presbyterian in Columbus, OH.
Over the years I have come to realize that Christians approach the Bible from a number of different vantage points. This cause lots of issues and problems, especially for Protestant Christians, with our greater emphasis on the witness of Scripture. And today's reading may be one small case in point.
When Jesus tells "The Parable of the Wicked Tenants," how are we to appropriate his words? For some the Bible is primarily a history, and so this is simply an account of Jesus condemning the Jewish authorities, a passage that provides "proof" that the new covenant through Jesus supersedes the old covenant with Israel.
Others, myself included, see the Bible writers as less concerned with history and more concerned with guiding Christians in their lives of faith. Luke's gospel makes clear that the author expects his readers already to know the story of Jesus. He wants to help them understand its significance for their lives. And if Luke is not trying to relate "what happened," what does he expect his readers to garner from these verses?
Gentile Christians might have heard these verses very differently than you or I do. At a time when most Christians understood themselves to be Jewish, the parable speaks good news to Gentile outsiders regarding their inclusion into the covenant.
But what of us today? If anything, modern Christians' attitudes are quite the opposite of those first Gentile Christians. We aren't the latecomers to the party who others regard with suspicion. We've been running the show for centuries. Rare is the Christian nowadays who thinks of herself as a Jew. We have taken our place as the tenants. We've taken over the franchise. And so, does the parable speak a different word to us as tenants, as franchisees?
One of the fundamental claims of Christianity is that God's Word became flesh in the Incarnation. Such a claim has interesting implications. The Incarnation speaks of a Word that is not some static truth, but that is engaged with us, that seeks to meet us and to somehow change us in the encounter. But reducing the Bible to facts with one simple meaning seems to deny God this freedom to move dynamically in our lives, to speak to us what is important for us to hear now, to say things quite different from what needed to be spoken to First Century, Gentile Christians in the Mediterranean world.
When we go to the Bible, what do we hope to find there? Are we looking for "proofs," or are we hoping to encounter the Living God who seeks to transform us into something new?
Until I became a pastor, I don't think I ever realized that the scripture readings for the first Sunday in Advent were always about "days to come," about the return of Jesus. The first Sunday in the waiting and preparing of Advent is about waiting and preparing for the Kingdom.
Growing up I always thought that Advent was about getting ready to celebrate Christmas. It was simply a way of building excitement prior to the big day, the church's equivalent of the shopping season. But I have come to realize that Advent calls for a much more profound sort of waiting and preparing.
As much as I enjoy celebrating Christmas, the trouble with an Advent that anticipates nothing more than another Christmas is that it anticipates nothing new. It anticipates a celebration, but one that only remembers. It doesn't look forward to much. When we've finished Advent and Christmas is done, nothing will have changed. We will put away the decorations and go back to life as usual.
But the promise of Christmas is that God has acted and will act in history. The coming of Jesus is about a decisive break in human history that heralds a new day, one that the church is called to proclaim, enact, and embody until it arrives. But we appear to have forgotten this. We do not seem to think God will do anything on the earthly stage. We've deferred all that until "after death." When it comes to human history, many Christians imagine a remarkably impotent God.
But Advent calls us to look at the darkness of the world, the pain and injustice, the suffering and war, and to know that the coming of Christ is but the first act of a two act play. Advent invites us to remember that God notices the world's pain and darkness, that God does act within human history, and that God will finally bend history to God's hopes and dreams.
In the uncertainty of our age, I think we would all do well to enter into Advent rather than a Christmas prelude. We would do well to recall that the darkness of human history is the arena where Jesus appears, that the darkness of human history is what God will transform. For when we can truly do that, we may be able to hope and live for something much more than yet another Christmas.
I haven't made it out shopping yet. Nothing against shopping. I'm sure I'll enjoy doing a bit before we get too close to Christmas. But I'll never be one of the those folks I saw on the news Thursday night; in line, dressed in pajamas, standing in the rain at the local outlet mall, waiting for the official midnight start of Black Friday. (The pajamas made people eligible for some sort of special prizes.)
One of the people interviewed on the news spoke of "living for" such moments. I don't want to over-read what may be nothing more than hyperbole, but that remark made me wonder about what it is we "live for." What is it that is truly meaningful, truly sustaining, truly feeds us at the deepest level. Such questions revived when I read from today's psalm. O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
I saw a Christmas themed Lexus commercial this morning where the narrator said something about how, if we're honest, we must admit we've never hoped for a smaller present. Meanwhile a Lexus is packaged and wrapped in the driveway. Again this is probably hyperbole. Many people are happy with small presents. But the commercial assumes we will get it, that we will nod our heads in agreement that bigger is better, that more will satisfy us better than less.
What would truly quench the thirst in many of our souls? What would truly feed the hunger we have that we don't know how to satisfy? Our culture says the answer is, "More, bigger." But we never seem to be satisfied. And our thirst never seems quenched. Perhaps the culture is wrong. But it seems so much more sensible than that silliness Jesus is selling.
We'll be gathering at the home of friends soon for Thanksgiving with all the fixings. With several families bringing food, there will be no way to sample everything. I'm sure there will be at least five or six choices for dessert alone. Living a long way from my family back in the Carolinas, I truly appreciate being able to join with good friends on this day.
But at the same time, I've been thinking a lot lately about Thanksgiving in the midst of loss. That first Thanksgiving was born out of terrible loss. Huge numbers of the Pilgrims had died, and the original Thanksgiving celebrated the fact that some of them were still alive and had food for the coming winter. Not really about abundance and cornucopias.
In this morning's Columbus newspaper is a Thanksgiving story about a family whose toddler is alive because of an organ transplant, which of course was possible because of another family's terrible loss. Then the pre-game show for the NFL game featured a reunion of those whose lives were changed by transplants from a football player whose mother made the choice to donate his organs after he was killed in a terrible accident. And as a pastor I have regularly observed how people preparing for funerals often discover that this is the first time they have paused long enough to really remember and recall a loved one. The thanks and gratitude of such moments is often poignant, and sometimes tinged with regret.
We live in a culture of accumulation and consumerism, and we often connect Thanksgiving with abundance. But I do not think abundance produces the deepest thanks, something the writer of Psalm 116 seem acutely aware of. I hope that is something I can keep in mind as I enjoy my Thanksgiving meal this evening.
This Thanksgiving, I pray that you have the time to pause, take stock, and give thanks for those deepest blessings of life.
I suppose it is a coincidence that on the eve of Thanksgiving the gospel reading is about Jesus having dinner at Zacchaeus' house. Perhaps you remember Zacchaeus from the children's song; "... a wee little man was he." Short Zacchaeus climbed a tree to see the Jesus parade passing through Jericho. Jerusalem and the cross loom large for Jesus at this point, with Jericho the last stop before entering Jerusalem. But Jesus brings the parade to a halt, looks up into the tree at Zacchaeus, and says, "I'm having dinner and spending the night at your place."
No one is much pleased about this, other than Zacchaeus. Old Zack is a tax collector, which in the Roman world was basically a sanctioned criminal. Jews like Zacchaeus had paid the Romans for their positions. They had a set amount to collect, and anything they managed beyond that was theirs. With Roman might at their disposal, they shook down their fellow Jews, growing wealthy as they robbed their neighbors and supported an occupying empire. Of all the people for Jesus to pick.
On this day when lots of people are headed to Grandma's house, we hear Jesus invite himself to Zacchaeus' house. No Norman Rockwell painting here. Zacchaeus friends are likely as unsavory as he is, and the house is the product of ill gotten gain. But there is Jesus at the table. The occasion overwhelms Zacchaeus, who vows to turn over a new leaf. And Jesus says, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham." In other words, the last person anyone would invite for Thanksgiving is restored to the community, is a beloved member of the family.
Thanksgiving and the upcoming Christmas season usually prompt an outpouring of help for the less fortunate, often in the form of food and dinners. Our congregation does this as well, and many of the recipients are thrilled to receive what we bring. But in my experience, the divide of "us" and "them" often remains. So how do we become community? How do we become family?
As a pastor, I find that it is easy for me to get preoccupied with the tasks of professional ministry, so preoccupied that I can miss opportunities for showing Christ to others. One of the big items in my work is Sunday worship. It is important work, but I wonder what Jesus would think about the way I and many attending worship might respond to someone in need. I can get so focused on the upcoming service that I become oblivious to much of what is going on around me. And I mentioned in this blog before a time when the ushers at our church escorted a man seeking assistance out of the building, telling him to come back later, at a better time.
I wonder if I and those ushers and lots of other folks wouldn't have chimed in with the crowd in today's gospel who "sternly ordered" a blind beggar to be quiet when he cried out for Jesus' help. Surely Jesus had more important things to do. He has just told his disciples that he is headed to Jerusalem where he will be mocked, flogged, and killed. He is on his way to his moment with destiny. Surely he hasn't time for one so unimportant as this blind beggar.
Luke's gospel tells us repeatedly that Jesus brings a new day where the poor and unimportant are lifted up while the rich and powerful are pulled down. God's kingdom is full of reversals, and Jesus enacts one as he heals this blind beggar, who then joins Jesus on the way.
In our current economic climate, lots of congregations and charities are hurting for money. Many churches are struggling to balance budgets, pondering where to make cuts. Mission dollars are often a tempting target because they represent the largest share of "discretionary" spending. And a $5000 cut in mission giving is surely preferable to a $5000 cut in my salary.
Giving thanks is a fundamental act of faith. The Psalms are filled with calls the give thanks and offer thanksgiving. "O Give thanks to the LORD..." In my own Calvinist tradition, gratitude is understood as the prime motivator of a Christian life. And so this week when most all Americans celebrate Thanksgiving would seem to be a moment when an entire nation could engage in a shared religious experience without worrying too much about particular theological doctrines or differences. So it would seem, except that we have a hard time squeezing much thanks or gratitude into what we call Thanksgiving.
Most of us know some version of that first Thanksgiving celebrated by the Pilgrims. But aside from the fact of a meal, I'm not sure it has much in common with our celebration. Theirs was centered around joy that they had survived, that God had provided (with the assistance of Native Americans being a significant part of that providence). In the midst of suffering and death, of the very real threat that none of them would make it, God had seen them through.
But our version of Thanksgiving has become a celebration of abundance and excess. We stuff ourselves, catch a parade, watch some football, and get ready to shop. Some of us may offer thanks for all this abundance, but of course it is an abundance produced by our hard work and by American ingenuity. It is not about God providing our daily bread. It is all about having more.
Despite Jesus' repeated warnings on the subject, despite the Bible's repeated warnings, we have become a nation obsessed with consumption and accumulation. The gospel that spews non-stop from our televisions and other media is that happiness is about having more. And so we simply cannot reconcile our culture's gospel with what Jesus says in today's gospel reading from Luke. "There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me... How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
Our need to accumulate is rooted in our survival instinct, a drive to store up enough food to get through the winter and so on. But of course our accumulating has nothing to do with survival. Instead it comes from our anxiety, our worry that others may get more than us, our worry that there isn't enough to go around. At a fundamental level, our need to accumulate is rooted in a fear that if we don't grab our share, we will be left out. We simply do not trust that God's providence will be sufficient to give us all that we need.
I am suspicious that true gratitude becomes more and more difficult the more we have. Wealth often breeds a sense of entitlement. And somewhat surprisingly, wealth often diminishes generosity. People of limited means are often much more generous with what little they have than those who are wealthy. Having more, it seems, often leads to more anxieties and worries about holding on to it. Perhaps this is why Jesus says wealth and the Kingdom of God are so incompatible.
On Thursday, my family will join with a few others to celebrate. We will enjoy turkey and pumpkin pie and good wine and many other delicious dishes. I will have a grand time and wouldn't miss it for the world, nor would I begrudge anyone else such enjoyment. But I do find myself growing increasingly uncomfortable with just what it is that motivates me. To what degree is my life an act of gratitude and thanksgiving? And to what degree is it an attempt to accumulate things, status, reputation, respect, etc? To what degree is my life a joyful response to God's gifts? And to what degree is it an attempt to assuage my own anxieties?
The other day I was flipping through the hymnal looking at the hymns listed as being for today, Christ the King. Some of them are pretty well known: “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name!” “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” “Rejoice, the Lord is King,” to name a few. Here is the first verse of another one. “The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now; a royal diadem adorns the mighty victor’s brow.”
When Jesus began his ministry he said, “The kingdom of God has come near.” And now, on the last day of the Christian year, we celebrate that despite the powers-that-be trying to stop Jesus, despite their killing Jesus, he sits upon the throne of God’s kingdom, and the day is coming when everyone on earth will see his reign.
Christ is King! All hail, King Jesus! In a lot of people’s minds, the Jesus who died on the cross has now morphed into a king of power and might. Some Christian writers go so far as to say that “the lamb becomes a lion.” The Jesus who willingly suffered has been transformed into a warrior who will return to earth to set things right, by force if necessary.
Some of those hymns seem to hint at this. Yes, Jesus suffered once, but now he is clothed in glory. The crown of thorns has been replaced by a real crown. The lamb that was slain is now “the mighty victor.” That sounds a bit more like my image of a king, of God’s messiah.
We Americans don’t have that much direct experience with kings and royalty. But I think most of us still have a pretty good image of them. We’ve seen enough movies, read enough stories, and seen royals from other countries. Think about the images that come to mind when you hear the word king. Think about the things you associate with kings.
There’s a king in the Bible who fits my stereotype of a king to a “t.” It’s Solomon, who built the great Temple in Jerusalem, who was known for his wisdom. Listen to this description of how Solomon lived. Solomon's provision for one day was thirty cors of choice flour, and sixty cors of meal ten fat oxen, and twenty pasture-fed cattle, one hundred sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and fatted fowl… (Solomon) also made a great ivory throne, and overlaid it with the finest gold… Nothing like it was ever made in any kingdom. All King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the House of the Forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver--it was not considered as anything in the days of Solomon… Solomon gathered together chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses, which he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem… Solomon’s import of horses was from Egypt and Kue. (1 Kings 4:22ff)And I suppose I should mention that Solomon also had 700 wives, including a daughter of Pharaoh, and 300 concubines. Now that’s a King!
So on Christ the King Sunday, perhaps we should picture Jesus like Solomon, only grander. Except I’m not sure the description of Solomon is all that complimentary. In the book of Deuteronomy, just before the Israelites cross the Jordan River to enter the Land of Promise, Moses recites God’s law. The law on kings says, He must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the LORD has said to you, "You must never return that way again." And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself. When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him in the presence of the levitical priests. It shall remain with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes, neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandment.(Deut. 17:16-20)
I wonder if the prophet Jeremiah has these verses from Deuteronomy in mind when he condemns the kings and priests and leaders of his day. Jeremiah says that the terrible events in Jerusalem, the coming destruction of the city and the exile of the people to Babylon, are because of bad shepherds, shepherds who didn’t care tenderly for the flock, but who enriched themselves and enjoyed the good life.
And Jeremiah promises that God will not sit idly by forever. Those shepherds who have not attended to the flock will themselves be attended to by God. And God will raise up a good shepherd who will search for and find all the lost sheep, none shall be missing.
If Jeremiah was around today, I think he would find quite a few folks who fit, more or less into the bad shepherd role. As our nation and the world struggle to come out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, CEOs of corporations that have laid off thousands of workers are being paid hundreds of millions of dollars. And when these CEOs are let go, they receive severance packages and retirements that often exceed what the rest of us will make in a lifetime.
And if you can’t become a CEO, make it big in politics. If you do, you will never want for money again. I saw a report the other day on how, during the worst economy in my lifetime, the average wealth of those in Congress jumped 16% between 2008 and 2009, from $785,000 to $911,000. Almost half in Congress are now millionaires. And all US presidents, regardless of party, walk away from the White House rich, whether or not they were rich when they were first elected. They almost can’t help it, with appointments to boards, invitations to speak, and book deals.
I don’t want to paint with too broad of a brush, but I imagine that biblical prophets, who tended to speak large and use hyperbole, would have struggled to name the good shepherds of our day, the leaders who worry more about the sheep than themselves, who do not acquire great quantities for themselves, who do not exalt themselves over the other members of the community, who meditate day and night on doing what is right. But curiously, when the prophets see their world falling apart because of bad shepherds, they do not hope for a return to the good ole days, but instead for a new thing that God will do.
I recently attended a retreat where the featured speaker was Old Testament scholar, Walter Brueggemann. He argued that one of the crucial tasks for the church in our time is to help our society move through a drama of loss and renewal. And he says this can only happen when we look around us, speak the truth about our situation, lament the loss all around, and from there, begin to envision and hope for the new thing God is doing.
Facing loss, we often prefer denial. We want things to get back to how they were. We long for good ole days. We speak of how we need to restore traditional values. We fondly remember when there were 40 youth in the confirmation class. But the problem with all kinds of denial and nostalgia is they presume that some moment in the past is as good as it gets. But as soon as we elevate any good ole day to such a pinnacle, we essentially deny the faith of prophets, the faith of Jesus. We say that when it comes to our daily lives, to life here on earth, to history, God doesn’t have much to do with what happens. God doesn’t matter.
And so in our day false prophets of nostalgia like Glenn Beck arise and insist that Jesus and the Bible don’t say anything about social justice, about a coming day when the poor are lifted up and the hungry fed, about a new day when the shepherds’ concern is only for the flock, not for themselves.
But prophets like Jeremiah stare into a time of defeat and exile, look at the ruins of a shattered Jerusalem, see the suffering of the poor and those caught up in the economic tragedy of that day and insist, “The days are surely coming…” Jesus looks to the agony of the cross and insists that it will be a great victory for God’s kingdom that is drawing near.
And we, as we proclaim Christ our King, and as we offer our pledges to God, must decide what we will long for and hope for and work for. As we see the world around us changing, as things we have counted on and enjoyed and grown comfortable with pass away, as we strain to see a future that is not at all clear, will we, like the Israelites who had escaped Egypt, look back in longing for the old, the familiar? (Facing the uncertainty of the Wilderness, the Israelites begged Moses to take them back to the security of slavery in Egypt.) Or will we trust that the future belongs to God? Will we move toward something we can see only by faith, boldly proclaiming, “The days are surely coming…”
When you read the Bible, do you occasionally find yourself saying, "I'm not sure I believe that?" I know that I've upset people at times when I preached from today's gospel reading and highlighted the idea of God favoring criminals who feel bad about what they've done over good, diligent, religious people. And even Jesus' statement, "For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted" can be problematic. Do I really think being humble is a good strategy? Do you? I don't know. I'm not sure I believe that.
We Protestants, with our focus on the Bible, don't like to admit to doubting it, but think of all the passages that trouble us, that we either ignore or use elaborate interpretations to make them say something other than what they actually say. How many of us believe that wealth is one of the single biggest obstacles to following Jesus? How many of us believe in turning the other cheek? Much has been said about how few Christians regularly read the Bible, and I wonder if this isn't a strategy for avoiding those "I'm not sure I believe that" moments.
I've said this before, but I increasingly feel that the end of Christendom, our culture's unwillingness to continue propping up the Church, is a huge gift. When Christianity became wedded to the state, it had to become compatible with the state. It had to tone down those teachings of Jesus that made people in power uncomfortable. It had to ignore those teachings that undermined the national, military, colonial, economic, or other ambitions of the state. And while Christian faith often mitigated some of the state's worst tendencies, very often the state did more transforming of Christianity that the other way round. And the Church compromised on modeling the ways of the Kingdom to the world.
But the culture has realized that it no longer needs the blessings of the Church. It no longer is willing to send us members, shut down activity on Sunday morning, or augment Christian Education in the schools. And so we are free. Our contract with the state has been broken. We no longer need sell our souls for the culture's promise of preferential treatment. We can be the outposts of the Kingdom Jesus calls us to be.
And that brings me back to those "I'm not sure I believe that" moments. What if our discomfort with many biblical teachings is rooted in that deal Christianity made with culture all those centuries ago? And if so, don't we need to reexamine our discomfort to see if it's nothing but old cultural residue that seeks to distort the faith for the culture's benefit?
Today's reading from Malachi is probably not the best example, but it is one among many where God's relationship with Israel is described in terms of marriage. And looking at a number of such readings, what strikes me is how God goes through the whole gamut of emotions we might expect of someone who loves a spouse dearly but discovers that the spouse is unfaithful.
Faced with Israel's repeated unfaithfulness, God's anger can boil up and issue in promises to destroy. But then God can plead with Israel to come back, can speak of wooing Israel once again. God's relationship with Israel is depicted as the source of endless emotional turmoil for Yahweh. The decision to enter a covenant with them has complicated God's life in countless ways.
Christians - at least Western ones - often seem troubled by such a view of God. Our understandings of divinity are much more influenced by Greek, philosophical thinking. Parts of the New Testament itself have a bit more Greek, Western influence. But of course all of that comes after Jesus, who is quite at home in the world of the Old Testament prophets, the very folks who spoke of God's inner turmoil.
And besides, what is Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane if not a manifestation of inner turmoil, a poignant picture of how complicated God's life is because of us.
