Proper 26A Pride and Power

Today’s gospel, if it were to have a title might be called Pride and Power, although it has little resemblance to anything Jane Austen wrote.

The abuse of power that Jesus confronts today in the Jewish synagogue seems much more like the abuses that the Occupy Wall Street groups are protesting.  That movement that has spread across the country has many different aspects to it, but one message protests against corporate greed.  The organizational structure of our financial institutions is very complex, nothing like the structure of power in 1^st century synagogues, but the message seems to be the same—we can’t trust some of those in power to lead us because their behavior goes against the very things they are trying to teach us.

In the synagogue leaders, the gospeller of Matthew sees abuse of power in the way the leaders teach one thing but do another. Pride can easily take over those in power.  We see it in some doctors who tell us how to live but who abuse drugs themselves.  We see it in some politicians who want justice and equity for people, but who themselves live with great amounts of wealth. If you look for it, you can find the sin of pride in some of those wielding power. 

Even church leaders are not immune to this pride.  The community of Matthew seemed to be wrestling with their church leaders as their new Christianity began to be established.  Whenever a new group challenges the old way of doing things as they were, the abuses of those holding power are usually challenged too.  Which is why change in organizations can help clean out abuses, make organizations become more attuned to their real missions.  In churches today, these reorganizations take place with the coming of new leadership, like the reorganization going on in our diocese now.

It is never bad when leaders are questioned about their actions, challenged to aquit themselves when what they do does not jibe with what they say.  Even parents deal with this kind of challenge by teens on a fairly regular basis.  And each of us have power over something or someone in some aspect of our lives, and are subject to questioning how our beliefs square with our actions.  Do we preach one thing but do another?  These questions can lead us to the truth about ourselves and seeing hard to take places where our own pride has taken over.

But most of us do not have power, in the sense of synagogue leaders who tell others how to live faithful lives. Some groups among us lack power of any kind—those who are down and out through economic setbacks for instance, many of whom will be coming to our coat closet in the next few weeks to get help. Giving away a coat does not make Holy Trinity change the powerlessnesss they feel, but it may help look for a job because they will have the proper cold weather clothes now.  A child will not suddenly stop being different because they live in poverty, but they may be able to hold their head up a little higher with a new parka.

What we do here at Holy Trinity, even the small things like giving away a coat, makes a difference in other people’s lives, and if our faith means nothing else, it means asking those hard questions about ourselves:  do our actions as a faith community jibe with the faith we profess?

In visiting the sick and homebound, I often hear about powerlessness.  Those who have lost their ability to care for themselves through age and disability tell me they feel of little importance. Some cry when I visit; one person tells me directly they feel unworthy to have me visit them.  This is the opposite of the sin of pride. God condemns the sin of pride, but these feelings of lack of worth are not what God intends either.  God intends us all to feel we have something of worth inside us, and that this worth can be shared with all we come in contact with.  How do I tell that to someone who cannot leave the house or nursing home, but knows they may spend the rest of their days away from the mainstream of human contact? 

Our society is so tied to productivity and efficiency in how we think about ourselves, we lose the most important fact about existence: that we are made in God’s image, are worthy merely because of our existence, not because of what we do in our profession, how productive we are, whether we even have a job.  Powerlessness comes from being down economically in our society, being down because we don’t feel we have a say in our lives, being down by virtue of being the worker bee not the executive.  In all these ways, our society makes us believe we have nothing to offer, we are not important.

But Jesus says today—the least will be first. In God’s eyes, those who make it their mission to serve others who are down will be given the keys to the kingdom. In God’s eyes, those who use their power for others, not for bettering themselves, see what God’s kingdom means here and now.

None of us are perfect in backing up our beliefs with our actions. None of can say we always, every day and hour, use our own power without abusing others. And some of us can say that we lack power and we may feel unworthy.  But listen to what God is saying: you are worthy because you are a child of God. Give up pride, it doesn’t make you more worthy in God’s eyes. Make your own powerlessness a source of humility, and a source of the sense of your reliance on all God has done for you.

Proper 24 A The Image of God

I want to take Jesus at his word today, in telling the Pharisees who try to trip him up to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

Many in the past have gotten caught up in the original question, should we pay taxes to Caesar, but I think we are missing the most important point Jesus is making, which is not about Caesar, the state at all, but about God.

For Jesus, everything comes of God. Jesus grew up with the scriptures of Genesis telling him that God created everything and pronounced it was good, then God created male and female in God’s image, and pronounced that they were very good.  Anyone can put their image on things, but only God can make living and breathing creatures in God’s own image.

You can take a one or five dollar bill from your wallet and see it has the image of a Lincoln or Washington—symbols of our government, but if you look at Holy Trinity’s new directory you see another kind of image—one that the church has created, with images of all whom God has made in God’s image. 

So money is expendable, spendable, but we humans are not.  We give money away, but we give ourselves to God.  We acknowledge the source of all that we have in God. Give to God what is God’s, and that includes everything—our life, our family, our talents and gifts, and yes our gifts of money too, because they represent the work that we have done with the mind and heart God created in us.

Just like the scribes who tried to trip up Jesus with their question, we get mired in questions of what belongs to whom. Some of us have a hard time acknowledging that God has been involved at all in their creation or the things they do on a daily basis—that God created in them certain talents and gifts and that it is through God’s grace that they have been life and all that they have and are.

As we begin the in the next few weeks to write down some of what God has done for us, we will be made more aware of the abundance we have from God.  People who take time to ponder the things they are grateful for begin to have more peace in their lives, to be less worried about possessions and be able to share more of what they have. 

Research shows that less than 50% of ability to be thankful, to focus on our glass being half full not half empty is given to us at birth genetically and the rest of our ability to be grateful can be worked on by our attitudes and habits. It is possible to cultivate a mind that focuses on the good around us: those who we love, shelter, food, the sun coming up in the morning, the laughter of a child. And research also shows that these feelings of gratitude can be very relative.

There was a family who all lived in two rooms: mother, father, children, grandchildren. They complained about the noise and chaos to their master. The master commanded them to bring their farm animals into the house with them as well.  After a week, the head of the household went to the master loudly lamenting the stink, mess, dirtiness and noise of the household with the animals in it.  The master told them to let the animals out, and suddenly the household seemed much more quiet and peaceful and clean.

It is in our human nature to sometimes only learn what we have when are in danger of losing it: this applies to people in our lives, our health, our jobs, and all sorts of abundance.  But Jesus is saying to us that God is looking for an attitude that pays attention to all the gifts surrounding us all the time, not just when we are about to lose them.

The image of God is all around us, beckoning us to regard it as God among us, to treasure these things and people that give us life as gifts from the God of grace.  If you want, you can cultivate the mind of gratitude, find peace in your situation, not by denying that something may be wrong, but by focusing more energy on what is right.

So I encourage you to consider the gifts from God in your life.  To make a concerted effort to improve your relationship with God by acknowledging God’s sovereignty and grace.  To make your Christianity one of pointing to contentment with your situation, to be peaceful with yourself and with God, and to cultivate the mind that looks for grace abounding around you.

God asks for nothing in return for the grace bestowed upon us, but a grateful heart. Return to God what is God’s, Jesus says today—give grace back to God not because it is required but it what a grateful heart does.

Proper 23A Your Banquet Invitation

Can you ever remember being left out of an invitation?  I can remember as a child not receiving an invitation to someone’s birthday party and of course, in my childish way, felt very rejected and left out.  I think many people feel left out of the mainstream.

For instance, it has been a busy few months for me in pastoral calling, because we have had three people in the hospital at various times, a funeral, and the usual older parishioners who are in nursing homes and at home and don’t get out.  So I have seen the loneliness that some of them have expressed, the bewilderment of others that they are unable to do the things they normally do—to work in the yard or go shopping.  Confronting illness can certainly put you into a box, away from your friends and family.

I can remember when my sister Peg was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer in 1999.  After a few weeks of treatment, she told me that some of her best friends had not contacted her, but others who she hardly knew came to her assistance.  I have seen this phenomenon with others with chronic illness, whose network of friends seems to suddenly drop from sight.  Sociologists and psychologists tell us that those friends who can’t be with someone they love who is ill are most often feeling the fear of their own mortality.  Someone with serious illness may feel particularly alone.

The invitation of the king to attend his son’s wedding banquet today goes unheeded. His guests were not only rude, they were violent toward his slaves, for what reasons we don’t know. We only know that the king then invited people from the street whom he didn’t know, in place of these rude guests.

The wedding banquet symbolizes God’s invitation to all of God’s people to come to a feast prepared to celebrate the wedding of Christ with all creation, and especially with the church.  Each of have been asked to come to this feast, each of us have been given fancy engraved invitations, but there is an RSVP.

The RSVP asks us to come prepared in our wedding “robe”, dressed not in jeans and t-shirt, but in our best wedding outfit, our best shoes.  We don’t just show up to this wedding, but we come prepared to honor the groom, Christ.  We come dressed appropriately, clothed in Christ, as we say.

What does this mean?

You perhaps know what it’s like to show up to a party underdressed—you misunderstood the invitation when it said casual and came dressed down too much, and perhaps you felt embarrassed or as if you missed something in the invitation.  Just as in any wedding, we may come to the banquet of Christ dressed down:  our minds are consumed with jealousy, or anger, or coveting what others have, or wanting revenge for what others have done or said, or conversely when we are overcome with guilt and cannot forgive ourselves--whatever has taken over our thoughts that keeps us from feeling the mind of Christ—those things keep us from being prepared to honor Christ.

One of the most usual things I hear from people saying why they don’t come to church or don’t want a pastoral visit is that they don’t feel worthy.  Somehow they have the idea that they must be perfect to be Christians.  That is not the message of the invitation to the banquet—for all are invited.  The invitation asks only that you come freely, and come ready to honor the groom—come prepared with the right mind and heart—the mind of openness to the love of God and the message of Christ.

 When our minds are filled with earthly things we cannot focus on the things of Christ. When we want what we don’t have, when we want to control others, when we are consumed with our own worthiness, we are not ready for the banquet, we cannot consume the feast of Christ’s body and blood.

To cultivate the readiness for Christ’s banquet, our worthiness must be left in the hands of God to deal with.  We are worthy merely because of our humanness, and our acceptance of the invitation, our saying yes to God’s invitation, makes our hearts more open to contentment with ourselves and more open to loving and forgiving others in their humanness.

Our invitation keeps us close to God’s care for us, but we must respond.   God is here in our own challenges, God knows our feelings of unworthiness and the feelings that we harbor about our situation. But God invites us anyway, with open arms and a large feast ready to serve us.

Do you come with violence or do you come ready in your best wedding robe?  How can you make yourself open to the feast of goodness that God has prepared for you?