Sermon: God's extravagant grace (Oct. 29, 2023)

Reformation Day
October 29, 2023
Stewardship Kickoff: “God’s Extravagant Grace”

INTRODUCTION

Happy Reformation Day! In case you’re not up on your Lutheran history, we always celebrate Reformation Day on this last Sunday of October, the day closest to Oct 31, when, 506 years ago, Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on the church door and started a conversation that would dramatically change the Church and Western civilization. I say “celebrate,” even though it wasn’t much of a celebration at the time! In fact, Luther was a hunted man for his teachings. But now, centuries later, we do celebrate – not the pain and division that was also a part of this movement, but the Gospel itself, because Luther’s teachings helped Christians to set their sight once again on the essence of the Gospel. 

And the texts we hear today, the same ones that are always assigned for Reformation Day, help us to focus on that gospel message. Jeremiah, normally a book full of doom and gloom, offers the remarkable promise that despite our many mistakes, God will forgive us and “remember our sin no more.” Our Psalm tells of the strength of our God – it is the Psalm on which Luther based his famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress. Our reading from Romans is the one Luther was reading when he came to the world-changing realization that we can do nothing to earn our own salvation, but that we are saved by grace. And our Gospel will claim that the Son makes us “free” – free from the sin that would hold us captive, and inhibit our ability to live joyfully in the world. 

Today we are kicking off our stewardship campaign, focusing on “God’s Extravagance.” Today’s focus is on “God’s extravagant grace.” These texts are all loaded with signs of God’s grace! So as you listen, watch for the ways that God’s grace shows itself in these passages. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The book, Sensible Shoes, tells the story of four very different women who all find themselves together at a spiritual retreat center. One of the women, Charissa, is a young, beautiful grad student pursuing a PhD. She is driven, a perfectionist, and she has never had a teacher who didn’t love her. She is at the retreat center at a professor’s suggestion, to enhance one of her classes, but she is appalled to discover on the first day of the retreat that there is no syllabus: no objectives, no intended outcome to the retreat. How is she supposed to measure her success? How will the instructor know how well she is doing? From day one, she is frustrated by the experience. 

She brings her discouragement to her professor. She asks him what she is supposed to be learning from this unfocused “spiritual journey” thing he’d recommended. He tells her plainly that her desire to learn has become an idol for her. He says, “If your desire to learn is keeping you from encountering Christ, then the right place to begin is with confession and repentance. You begin by acknowledging the truth about yourself: you’re a sinner who needs grace.”

Tough words for a perfectionist – and indeed, it sends poor Charissa reeling. All she has ever tried to be in her life is Good. She is a model Christian, a good student, she is focused and responsible and always follows the rules. How dare her professor call her a sinner! She has done everything right! How could God not be pleased with that?

Charissa’s story resonates with me, and I suspect it may with some of you. In so many areas of our life, we do have near complete control over our fate… or at least we’ve convinced ourselves that we do. The American dream says as much: you work hard, you do well, you follow the rules, or at least know the appropriate time and way to break them, then you’ll get ahead. And if you don’t, well, that must just mean you have done something wrong, and need to work harder.

This is the message society tries to teach us. And yet then we come here to church and the very first thing we do is speak aloud those words, “We confess that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” How counter-cultural is that! 

Because it is so counter-cultural… I wonder how many of us really believe those words when we say them, more than we believe what society teaches? Or, how many of us instead think, “I’m a pretty good person, I always try to do the right thing, I’m kind and generous with my time and resources. Yes, I know I’m a ‘sinner,’ but really I don’t sin that much.” I admit that when we get to that part of the service where there is some silence for self-examination right before we pray the prayer of confession together, I sometimes struggle to think of specific sins because, like many of you, I believe I am, for the most part, a pretty good person. 

But this view of sin misses the point. It makes us sound like the crowd in today’s Gospel lesson. When Jesus tells them the Truth will set them free, their response is, “What do you mean free? Free from what? We’ve never been slaves to anyone!” Like Charissa in Sensible Shoes, they are aghast at the mere suggestion that they could be held captive by anything. Well, first of all, this is, for this Jewish audience, entirely untrue – they had been literal slaves. That was kind of the whole premise of the Exodus story, that they were delivered out of slavery in Egypt. But more importantly humans from across the ages have been held captive by any number of emotional, mental, and spiritual threats, by “hordes of devils filling the land,” as Luther calls them. We are held captive by our guilt about the past, our anxiety about the future, and our resentment about our inability to control our situation. We are slaves to our work, to a need to stay busy, to achieving at least the façade of success. We are bound by disease and health limitations, both mental and physical, and by a general sense of apathy. We are trapped in the heartbreak surrounding so many broken relationships – with our partners, our siblings, our parents or kids, our neighbors. 

It turns out, we are slaves. We do long for freedom. 

Now, those things are not necessarily inherently sinful. It is not a sin, for example, to be sick. But they are a part of the broader understanding of the condition of sin, because any or all of those things has the potential to threaten our relationship with Christ. They drive us away from trust in God and toward trust in our own abilities. Or, they convince us that we are somehow less than a beloved child of God who is made in God’s image. Or, they cause us to turn in on ourselves, to focus on our own navels, rather than look up and out to see God and neighbor. And when we do any of those things, the cycle of captivity to sin just continues.

But on this Reformation Day (and every day!), we celebrate that this captivity to sin does not define us. Today we celebrate God’s extravagant grace. Now, I want to be realistic here – those things I mentioned do exist, because we are human, we are captive to sin, and we do experience the brokenness that goes along with all that. But this brokenness does not define us. What defines us first of all is that we are beloved by our gracious Creator. We are loved. What defines us further, and what offers us hope in the midst of brokenness, is the very thing that society might try to tell us is a failure: We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves. But God can, and does, free us. It is by pure, extravagant grace that we are freed from, forgiven for, this brokenness. Even though we are sinners, God still does this for us. It is God’s promise that we are not responsible for achieving our own salvation: God through Christ does that for us. As Paul writes, “All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. But God treats us much better than we deserve, and because of Christ Jesus, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins.” (CEV) He forgives us, as Jeremiah says, and “remembers our sin no more.”

It is, truly, extravagant. For God just to forget our sin! To freely accept us, though we don’t deserve it! Wow! When we recognize that for the extravagant gift that it is, how do you feel compelled to respond? Personally, I’m overjoyed. That is so much more gracious than I have ever received from any human, and to know that even with all my mistakes, and small-mindedness, and participation in broken systems, and judgement of things I deem somehow not enough… God still loves, accepts, and forgives me… Whew. It is so liberating. It frees me to love and to be gracious to others with less fear. 

And, it frees me to be generous. That is what we are talking about during this stewardship season: that God’s grace, marvelous and extravagant as it is, frees and compels us to respond with generosity, both of spirit and of resources. Because of God’s extravagance, we have the freedom to say, “I know God’s got my back, that nothing can defeat me since Christ defeated death, that my God is trustworthy and good, and so I want to thank and praise, serve and obey him. I want to love and serve my neighbor. I want to be generous with my time, talents and treasures for the sake of God’s mission in the world, of which I am blessed to be a part. I am free to give of myself and my assets, just as God so freely gave of His.” 

This week, you should receive in the mail some information about planning your giving for next year. These next weeks are a chance for you to pray and discuss about how God’s extravagance compels you to respond, and then to make a commitment to God to do that thing. Maybe you will feel moved to pledge for the first time, or maybe you will commit to increasing last year’s giving by 10%, or maybe you will commit to give more regularly and intentionally and not just when you happen to think of it. 

Whatever your commitment is, whatever you, your family, and God have decided, know that God’s extravagant grace for you is unfaltering. You are God’s beloved, and nothing can ever change that. 

Let us pray… Extravagant God of grace, we find ourselves bound by so many forces, both internal and external. Thank you for freeing us by your grace, so that we would be free to love and serve you and the world with generosity. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.  

Full service HERE. (Some wonderful music this week!)

Sermon: Giving ourselves (October 22, 2023)

Pentecost 21A
October 22, 2023 – Children’s Sabbath
Isaiah 45:1-7
Matthew 22:15-22

INTRODUCTION

Religion and politics. The two things you should never talk about in polite company, right? And certainly not together! Yet today the lectionary brings these two together in an undeniable way. In the Isaiah text, the prophet announces that God is using a Gentile, the Persian king Cyrus, to bring about God’s purpose of bringing the Israelites out of Babylonian captivity, out of exile, and back to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple. It’s a story by which we see how God can use even an unfaithful ruler to bring about God’s justice and plan. 

Then in Matthew, some Jewish leaders try to trick Jesus – again – with a question about taxation, and whether taxes should be paid to the emperor, the king. It doesn’t get much more political than that! And to be sure, this is no idle inquiry – this question about taxation is a particularly hot issue of the day, one of the hottest. As usual, Jesus is not caught in their trap. But the exchange brings to mind how it is that we are called to live as both people of faith, and people who are a part of a political society. 

As you listen today, consider how your identity as a citizen and your identity as a Christian complement or enhance each other – or how they don’t – and what scripture might be saying about how to balance these two identities. Let’s listen.  

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

That clever Jesus. I love how he manages to maneuver so deftly out of these traps his opponents keep setting for him. This one is especially impressive: the Herodians (Jews who sympathized with the Romans) and the Pharisees (Jewish teachers of the law) are unlikely bedfellows, but they have teamed up to ask him about the biggest hot button issue of their day: the question of taxation. The oppressive Roman government was taxing the Jewish citizens, and then using that very tax to oppress them. It’s an issue that would, a few decades later, lead to a Jewish uprising and the destruction of the second temple. If Jesus says here that they shouldn’t pay taxes, then the Herodians will brand him a revolutionary, and get him for breaking the law and rising up against the Roman government. On the other hand, if he says yes to paying taxes, he will be a traitor to the Jewish people who are being oppressed by this very tax. Either way, Jesus is toast.

Haha, but not our Jesus! He directs them to the coin with which taxes are paid, asking them whose face is on it. Caesar’s face is on there, so, he says, it’s his. “Give back to the emperor what is the emperor’s,” he says. Easy peasy. But the real climax of this passage, comes in Jesus’ next words: “and [give back] to God what is God’s.” The concept of giving back to Caesar may be controversial, but it is at least straightforward. This statement about God, though, leaves room for question. What is God’s, exactly, that we should give it back? 

You may immediately think, “Well, everything belongs to God!” and you would be right, but Jesus’ words are even more specific than that. The clue is actually back in the first part of Jesus’ statement, as he explains what should go back to Caesar and why. The currency used to pay the emperor his tax is a coin, specifically a coin with the emperor’s head engraved on it. So, when Jesus has them pull out one of the coins and asks, “Whose image is on this coin, and whose likeness?” it is very obvious to whom that coin belongs, to whom it should be returned. 

So, if a coin is the currency by which we give back to the emperor, what is the currency by which we give back to God? If we are to follow the same logic, it is that which bears the image and likeness of God. Hm, what could that be?

 “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness. … So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God, he created them.” It’s right there in the book of Genesis: we are the currency, you see, by which we give back to God. We are – our hearts, our minds, our strength, our voices, all that is in us, all that God first gave to us – we are the means by which we give back to God. From our very creation we have borne the image of God in our very being. In our baptism we were marked again with this image when a cross was traced on our foreheads. Christ is engraved upon us. And so, if we want to give to God, we do it by giving ourselves.

Ok, so… How do we give ourselves?

We often talk about giving money, especially toward a worthwhile cause. St. Paul’s is exceptionally generous, and members are often more than happy to give. That is, in a way, giving of ourselves. But today we are talking about a part of ourselves we can give that goes much deeper than money: today we are talking about giving our voices in a way that serves the most vulnerable among us – children with developmental delays or disabilities. Today is a part of Children’s Interfaith Weekend, organized by The Children’s Agenda, a local organization that advocates for the needs of children. On this Sunday each year, local faith communities commit to writing letters on behalf of vulnerable children. Advocacy for children, in this case writing letters urging the governor to include funding in the budget for early intervention for kids with developmental delays and disabilities, is the perfect example of how our faith and our citizenship coincide. We are driven by our faith to speak up on behalf of the vulnerable in our community, just as Jesus did. You can read more about this issue and sign a letter electronically HERE.

There are lots of ways we can and should use our voices to advocate for others, of course. But political advocacy, as we’re talking about today, is an especially powerful one, because we know that God can use political leaders, even those who are not faithful, to bring about God’s will. That’s just what God did with Cyrus, after all, a Gentile king! God used Cyrus to deliver the Israelites out of Babylonia captivity and so they could return to Jerusalem. And I believe that God can use our political leaders today to bring us closer to God’s kingdom – a place where everyone, even the most vulnerable, youngest children among us, has what they need. Our role in that is to tell them, through letters, phone calls or whatever means necessary, that we believe in a world in which everyone, even these children, have what they need. After all, they, too, are stamped with God’s image. They, too, as our kids will sing for us in a moment, are children of God – no matter what people say!

As surely as Caesar’s image is stamped and engraved on a denarius, the image of God has been stamped upon us, upon our hearts, upon our lives. That image is of a God who is endlessly loving, merciful and compassionate. As Christ gave everything for us, so that we would have life, may we who bear that image bear it also to the world, in what we say, what we do, how we vote, and how we treat one another, and in so doing, may we bring life and light into the world.

Let us pray… Lord of all, you have created us in your image and marked us with the cross of Christ. Help us to live out this image in the church and in the world, and use the voice you gave us, until all your people, children and adults, would have what they need. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Full service (featuring many children, including my own who wrote and read the prayers of intercession!) can be found HERE. The children's choir also sang beautifully!

Sermon: In hope for the feast to come (October 15, 2023)

Pentecost 20A
October 15, 2023
Isaiah 25:-19; Psalm 23; Matthew 22:1-14

INTRODUCTION

Today Jesus continues to share parables meant to challenge the religious elites of the day – but they are no less challenging for us still, in 2023. Today’s parable is particularly difficult, as it paints a picture that seems like it should describe God, inviting everyone to a royal feast, but it ends up looking very little like the God we know and love and worship. 

The other three readings, however, are lovely. Isaiah will also speak of a rich and satisfying feast, at which God will wipe away tears, and at which we will rejoice and be glad in his salvation. Psalm 23 describes a table set for us in the presence of our enemies, in which our cup will overflow with goodness. Even Philippians, while not about a feast, is about rejoicing, and praise, and relishing in the goodness of Christ, who will guard our hearts and minds, and whose peace surpasses all understanding. 

Hold tightly to the promises you hear in those first three readings, friends. Then, as you listen to the difficult gospel lesson, be guided by the question that best guides all of Jesus’ parables: what does this story show us about who God is, or perhaps, who God isn’t. Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The parables we’ve had these last couple of weeks are difficult any time they come up in the lectionary, no doubt. Not only are they difficult to interpret – we believe, after all, in a loving and gracious God, and the king we see in today’s parable is anything but! – but they also bear the baggage of a history of antisemitic interpretation. Christians have used them to say, “God favors Christ-followers. Christianity has superseded Judaism, and is the one true way to worship God.” Lord knows, we do not need any more antisemitism in our world, and having these texts and their baggage come up in light of current world events has made a gracious interpretation of them even more difficult.

This week in particular, I admit to you that I have really struggled to write this sermon. I keep getting stuck on this line, where the king “sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.” It is so graphic, and when paired with the horrific images coming out of Israel/Palestine right now, it is near impossible to stomach.

So how do we come to terms with this? I have a few offerings which might help. One is to recognize the historical context of this writing. Matthew is writing around the year 80, about a decade after the destruction of the second Jerusalem temple (the first, the one Solomon built, having been destroyed in 587 BC, by the Babylonians, after which many of the Jews were sent into exile in Babylon). This time it was the occupying Romans who destroyed it, after a Jewish uprising. Matthew’s audience, made up primarily of Jews who had been cut off from their communities because of their belief in Jesus as the Messiah, were trying to make sense of this catastrophic event. So, it is entirely possible that Matthew’s placing this parable here, at the end of Jesus’ life, standing near the Temple, is an effort to console his audience and make sense of the horror they watched unfold. That line that troubles me so this week, about sending troops to destroy murderers and burn cities, makes more sense when it is describing something that actually happened in the lives of the people listening – rather than something that will happen.

Still, we usually think of the King in these parables as being God. So what do we do with a God who would be so brutal as to use a foreign army to fatally punish lack of faithfulness, who invites everyone in, yes, but who then binds and throws out the first person he finds not to be “doing it right,” not wearing the provided wedding garment? Some commentaries I read, in desperate search for answers, pointed out that Matthew’s context, while important to know and understand, is not our context, and thus this parable may mean something entirely different to us in the 21st century – and that is okay! After all, this is the living word of God, and one static interpretation that remains unchanging for two millennia does not sound “living” to me. Scripture is always speaking to us in different ways, depending on what is happening around us and what God needs us to hear. 

Another commentator offered that when Jesus says at the beginning, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to…” it does not mean, “The kingdom of heaven is like this.” Rather, the Greek tense used there means something more like “Compare this to that,” as you would compare, say, apples to oranges – that is, as a contrast. Like, “This is the way a worldly leader (like Herod) would act, indeed, it is how we have seen worldly leaders act. It is something utterly different from the way our God and King rules.” Well that I can get on board with! But I’m also always suspect of interpretations that allow me to scoot past the difficult parts and not have to face them. 

And so I continued to dig and read and pray and try to understand this parable. As I did so, I heard a ping from Facebook, indicating that someone had commented on a recent post I’d made. The post was a share of a description a colleague had written, trying to help people understand some of the history of the situation in Israel/Palestine. Many of us are trying to understand, she’d said. Here is some brief historical information. The person who had commented on my share of that history was Becky, a seminary classmate of mine who is now a Jewish clergyperson. She warned of over-simplified descriptions, and added, “I would ask that you refrain from speaking of ‘sides’ in a war and from trying to explain what is happening.” I messaged her privately to continue the conversation, and she spoke of the difficulty of holding solidarity and grief and care-taking and lament. “It is just hard and extremely complex,” she said. 

In her public comment on my post, she also suggested what is most needed right now. I asked her if I could share it with you and she said yes. She wrote, “There will be a time, God willing, for analysis later, but right now thousands of human beings are dead and besieged, and a lot of us are in a state of shock and trauma. Sit with us and pray with us that people will soon be able to live lives of love instead of hate. Pray for a swift end to fear and terror. Pray that humans will use their tongues to build worlds, not to destroy them. And if that all feels trite, please sit with us in silence. This truly feels like a time when no words can express the magnitude of what has happened over the past days. Thank you for being there for us and with us.”

I was incredibly moved and humbled by her words and requests. I thought of how hard I had been working on trying to make sense of this parable – a story I thought I should be able to wrestle some good news out of, and just couldn’t. I thought of the millions of people – Jews and non-Jews alike – who are trying to make sense of what is happening as we speak in the Middle East, and who will likely never succeed. And I thought of all the people of faith who have been trying to make sense of horrific tragedy throughout time, looking for God’s hand in it, looking for meaning, looking for ways to hold onto their faith in the midst of the horror. 

And all of this, despite my best intentions to preach on the Gospel this week, urged me instead toward Isaiah and the Psalm, the texts we heard this morning that we share with our Jewish siblings. Like the Gospel, they both speak of marvelous banquets, but rather than horror, these serve up hope, peace, reconciliation. They serve the end of capital D Death, the end of division. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,” the Psalmist writes. I imagined this happening in Israel/Palestine – and it became in my heart a prayer that dovetailed with Becky’s: “Sit with us and pray with us that people will soon be able to live lives of love instead of hate.” 

I thought of the Isaiah text, which was also written during a time of war and terror: “On this mountain the Lord of Hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food… he will swallow up death forever.” Imagine hearing those words as the enemy army is breathing down your neck, as you fear the end of the world as you know it is near. Imagine hearing them as you long for peace, long to have an opportunity to celebrate with a feast like Isaiah describes. Imagine reading them as a Jew living on the Gaza strip today. Listen again to Isaiah’s words: “Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all the faces… It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

It is a vision we all share: a vision of life and celebration, a vision in which we need not fear the grave for God is with us and has come to save us. It is a vision of hope, even in the midst of lament. And someday it will be true. We will join in celebration at the invitation of our God, sharing together in a feast of peace, love and mercy, our cups running over. Dear God, may it be so!

Let us pray… Lord of Hosts, Good Shepherd, Righteous King, we pray for our Jewish and Palestinian siblings, both those living through unspeakable violence and those who grieve and lament from afar. And we pray for ourselves, that we try not so hard to understand and explain as to sit-with, to pray-with, to grieve-with. We pray that people will soon be able to live lives of love instead of hate. We pray for a swift end to fear and terror. We pray that we could find ways to build worlds, not to destroy them. Grant us all the peace that surpasses all understanding. We have waited for you, God, that you might come and save us. Amen.

Full service can be viewed HERE.

Sermon: Ownership vs stewardship (October 8, 2023)

Pentecost 19A
October 8, 2023
Matthew 21:33-46

INTRODUCTION

Today’s Gospel will pick up right where we left off last week. Remember, this is Monday of Holy Week, the day after Palm Sunday, after Jesus has turned over the money-changers tables in the temple, and has generally upset the authorities. They have just asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you that authority?” Jesus responded with a trick question that they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) answer, and then a parable that calls out the religious and political authorities on the ways they have not fulfilled their duty to God. And now he will tell another parable, about wicked tenants who are called upon to care for a vineyard, but who are not merely negligent, but actively work against the duties entrusted to them. Jesus is not making any friends here – Matthew tells us that the chief priests and Pharisees start looking for a way to arrest him, which they will do just three days later. 

The parable in the Isaiah text is one that Jesus’ listeners would definitely have been aware of; Jesus is likely referencing it in Matthew quite intentionally. It is a love-song about how God cared for this vineyard and hoped for great things for it, but has been disappointed that it yields only wild grapes (a word that I learned this week means something like, “stink-berries,” which makes me giggle). 

Both texts are about how people have squandered God’s providence, neglecting to seek justice and love. The good news is hard to see, I admit, but you will find some solace and hope in the epistle, about how nothing we do or don’t do is more powerful than what Christ has done for us. As you listen, dwell in the hope of this promise! Let’s listen.

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

This week I got a call in the office, and the person asked, “Hello, may I please speak to the business owner?” I said, “Well, uh, I’m the pastor, and this is a church, so…” She reiterated, “Ok, so are you the business owner?” Again, I hesitated before saying, “This is a church.” She said, “Okay, thank you!” and hung up. This is not the first time I have gotten such a call, asking if I am the business owner of this church. I assume such callers are not looking for a lesson in Lutheran theology or polity. (“Well, theologically speaking, the Church actually belongs to Christ, but legally it belongs to the congregation members. Our denomination’s polity has given decision-making power to the congregation, and it is their contributions – or time, talent, and treasure – which resource our mission.”) 

But joking and polity aside, the question of ownership for people of faith is an interesting one. To be clear, I do not own St. Paul’s, except insofar as I am a member just like all of you. But do I own my car, on which I have no more payments? Or my clothes? Or my computer? What about the money in my bank account? Do I own these things? People of faith are sort of caught between our culture’s obsession with owning things, and the power that this ownership gives us, and the knowledge that we own nothing, because everything comes from God. As Luther writes in the Small Catechism, “God has given me and still preserves my body and soul: eyes, ears, and all limbs and senses; reason and all mental faculties. In addition, God daily and abundantly provides… all the necessities and nourishment for this body and life.” Considered that way, you see, nothing at all is really ours, but God’s! 

The reason I’m thinking about ownership this week, is that this is a question in today’s parable in Matthew, often called “The Parable of the Wicked Tenants.” A landowner plants a vineyard and does everything necessary for it to thrive and succeed. Then he chooses some tenants, people who will live on and work and care for the land he has lovingly planted. So that is the relationship here: the landowner is the owner of the land; the tenants are stewards of that land. They do not own it, but are charged with the task of caring for it, helping it to bring about good fruit, on the owner’s behalf. Owner, and caretaker. The roles here ought to be very clear.

But… the tenants want to be more than stewards. They have morphed their role into something that grasps toward ownership, and all the power and control this role offers. They refuse to give up the produce, instead harming or killing those who come to collect it. And when the owner thinks to send his son, the tenants, rather than respecting him as the owner hoped, take the opportunity to make themselves true owners. “This is the heir!” they exclaim. “If we kill him, this will all be ours, and then we really will be the owners!” It’s a ridiculous prospect, because do they really think the landowner will say, “Oh, you bested me all right! Killed my son, that was a brilliant move. Now I have no heir, so I guess I’ll have to give the whole operation over to you clever tenants. Nice work!” Of course not! As the elders and chief priests rightly point out (not yet realizing that they are condemning themselves in this scenario!), “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

So, what do we make of this strange story? The classic, traditional reading of this parable is allegorical. The landowner is God, the tenants are the Jewish leaders, who have not borne good fruits, the fruits of the kingdom. Instead, they have squandered God’s gifts, and used their power not to care for the poor but to exploit them. God has sent numerous prophets (in the parable, that’s the slaves) to try to set them right, but they have not listened. Finally, God sends his son – that’s Jesus – and even the son, they kill. Now remember, this is Monday of Holy Week, so this is very close to actually happening. But, Jesus points out to them that their plot to become owners rather than stewards of all God has provided, and to do whatever they want with it, will be in vain, because “the stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” – and their killing of the Son will only serve to bring about God’s purpose, once he is resurrected. Jesus, the rejected stone, will become the cornerstone of our faith. So there is some good news here!

But I think this reading lets us off the hook too easily. It accuses the Jewish leaders of being unfaithful, or not bearing fruit, and we then get to be the “other tenants” at the end who will do a much better job of listening to God and bearing fruits of the kingdom. Yay us! But as a general rule of thumb, if you’re getting off easy after reading a parable, you’re probably missing something!

So to bring it back to where we started, where I feel convicted by this parable is in this question of ownership vs. stewardship. I see the wicked tenants grasping for ownership, for control, for freedom to do whatever they want with what they believe to be rightfully theirs. But to be a steward, you see, requires letting go of control. It requires making choices that keep in mind our connection to others within the system – whether that is the local community, or the environment, or the Church, or whatever. Let me say that again: being a good steward means making choices about what has been entrusted to us that are for the benefit not just of ourselves, but of the community, of neighbors near and far. 

And yet look how the tenants in this story act: they are so desperate for power and ownership that they resort to unreasonable violence, not once but several times. Their decisions are only for what they perceive to be their own benefit. The landowner sends them partners, but they are so focused on their own greed and desire that they reject, harm, and kill what is being offered to them, seeing it as threat. They are their own worst enemies, and they keep engaging in self-destructive behaviors, finally working themselves, presumably, not into gain, but into loss of everything.

And that ought to worry us a bit. Now for the most part, I think we are pretty decent people, generous people, who want what is best for our community, yeah? Certainly we are not murderous wretches! And yet we do continue to engage in lifestyles that harm our environment, participating in a never-enough culture of single-use items, fast fashion, and over-consumption. We continue to benefit from systems forged by a racist past, without doing much of anything to try to dismantle it. We are protective and possessive of what is ours, or what we believe to be rightfully ours, even as others suffer far more than we ever have. 

Now I know not all of that describes all of us all the time. But it describes most of us at least some of the time. There is room for improvement all around – in the ways we interact with the earth God made (whether that is in our personal use, or in our refusal to participate in a system that prioritizes convenience and consumption), in the ways we give and share our resources, in the ways we speak up for those who don’t have the privilege and opportunity that we do. We can all move in the direction away from valuing ownership over community, and toward being faithful stewards of what God has given to us to care for and benefit from. 

And here’s the thing: there is good news and grace in that opportunity. Yes, we do fall short, but there is grace enough for us to try again. Notice, Jesus never suggests that “those wretches [be] put to a miserable death.” That’s the leaders who say that. Jesus instead implies that even this wickedness is used by God to bring about salvation. And so it is also for us – we try, we fail, we try again, and whatever we can do, God will use it for His purpose, will use it to bring about life. God will continue to use us, trust us with this marvelous creation, forgiving us and guiding us toward a life of faithful stewardship of God’s many gifts – and will respond to our failures not with violence, but with grace. Let us not squander this trust, but steward it well, striving and “pressing on for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Let us pray… Gracious Owner, we crave power and ownership, even when it leads to destruction. Guide us instead to be good stewards of what you have entrusted to us – our selves, our time, and our possessions – so that we would work with you toward bringing about your kingdom’s goals of love and justice. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Full service can be viewed HERE.

Sermon: Grace empowers (October 1, 2023)

Pentecost 18A (Lectionary 26A)
October 1, 2023
Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-30
Philippians 2:1-13

INTRODUCTION

Since last week, a lot has happened in the Gospel of Matthew. Here’s what we skipped: Jesus has triumphantly entered Jerusalem on a donkey, to cheers and waving palms. He has gone to the Temple, and turned over the tables of the money changers in a fit of righteous anger. Now we are on Monday of Holy Week (we’ll stay in Holy Week for the next several Sundays). When the Gospel reading begins with the elders and chief priests asking where he gets the authority to do “these things” – well, these are the things they are talking about! And the question, really, is warranted – Jesus is making a real scene, as he overturns tables and structures both literal and figurative!

Today’s epistle, Paul’s letter to the Philippians, is a beloved text, where Paul quotes one of the earliest Christian hymns. In it, Paul is writing to a church community that is experiencing some tension and fears, and he is offering some guidance for overcoming that division. 

Finally, Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a prophet to the Israelites who had been deported to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar. They are feeling pretty grumpy, assuming they are being punished for the sins of their parents. “Not fair!” they cry. But God’s words through Ezekiel tell not of punishment, but of great mercy: “you are not suffering because of the sins of your parents,” he says. “You have the chance to live, and that’s what I want for you. Turn toward the Lord, and you will not die, but live.” 

Today’s readings are about walking the walk, not just talking the talk. As you listen, consider what keeps you trapped in old ways that bring death, and how God might help you to turn toward life. Let’s listen.     

[READ]

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I got a lot of comments after last week’s sermon, in which I claimed that grace is not fair, because it is by definition a gift that we don’t deserve and did not earn. Several people said they’d be chewing on that in the days to come. Me too! Believe me, just because I preach it doesn’t mean I have fully grasped it myself! I mean, I know we need to live in grace, trusting God and God’s ways. I know that often when we are so focused on what is fair and what isn’t, it doesn’t actually lead us into anything productive. And I know for me, when I complain about something being unfair, I am usually doing just that – complaining, and hoping someone else will do something about it.

I know these things. But simply accepting that life is not fair is not the same as living in grace. Because while focusing on fair and unfair is often unproductive, grace is anything BUT unproductive. Grace implies a call, a call to live into the gift that God has given us. 

Has anyone ever received a gift that required or encouraged you to take some action? Maybe a beautiful set of paints, or a sewing machine, or a musical instrument, that encouraged you to become a painter, a seamstress, a musician? When I was 16, I became friends with the principal oboist of the New York Philharmonic. It’s a long story, and one that I will happily share if you’d like to know, because it is the very best story I’ve got. But for now, sufficed to say that as our friendship began, this man arranged for me to receive an expensive, professional oboe as a gift. I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t deserve it, but he gave it to me. So you’d better believe I started taking my oboe playing more seriously! I started taking lessons, I joined a very fine youth orchestra, and I went off to college to major in music. His gracious gift didn’t come with expectations or strings attached, but having received it, I was moved and inspired to use that gift for good things. A gift of grace has that power. 

Ok, so where does our deeply ingrained sense of fair and unfair fit into all this? When we perceive something to be unfair, a little flag starts to wave that shows us “something is wrong here!” It shows that there is something more and better to seek – even, there is the possibility here of justice. Now when I say “justice,” I don’t mean the justice we often associate with the law, in which everyone gets what is coming to them, punishment for their crime. I mean a society that is just, in which everything is ordered according to God’s will, and not human intentions that are so riddled by sin, conceit, and selfish ambition. A society in which everyone has access to food and clean water, clothing, and affordable housing. A just society is one in which everyone is treated with love and respect, compassion and sympathy. 

This call to seek something more is apparent in Ezekiel’s words this morning. The children of Israel are lamenting that they, having just been sent by the enemy Babylonians into exile, are being punished for the sins of their parents. “It isn’t fair!” they lament. (There’s that red flag!) But God assures them that they are not being punished for their parents’ sin, but only for their own. The good news is, that means they have the agency to make a change. Sure, they could continue in their ways, but this is a path that leads to death. Instead, he urges, choose the path that leads to life. “Reject the ways of sin,” God beckons, “and get yourselves a new heart a new spirit!” Make a change! Let that sense of unfairness urge you to action toward a more just world, in which the poor are fed, clothed, and sheltered, and people act honestly and faithfully! Turn away from evil ways, then, turn toward just ways, and live!

It sounds so simple. So why don’t they do it? 

        Why don’t we?

I have a colleague who several years ago discovered the many health benefits of eating a plant-based diet. He read a book that outlines how eating vegan can actually reverse the damage that is already done to people’s hearts that causes heart disease. Knowing that heart disease is the number one killer in America, he couldn’t understand why anyone would NOT want to do this. “You could live!” he said. “Changing your diet in this way could make you LIVE instead of die. Why won’t people take that seriously!” Now I’m not making a morality judgment on eating meat (I know, steak is delicious!), but the sentiment here is not unlike the message apparent in our lessons today. You could live, if you only turn toward the life that it is in God – for Christians, the life that is Jesus Christ. Turn, and live. So why don’t people do it?

I eat mostly vegetarian at this point, thanks to my vegetarian husband and daughter, but I don’t know that I could do a fully plant-based diet, for two reasons. One, is I really like cheese and eggs. I really enjoy eating them! The other is, so many of the recipes I know how to make use cheese and eggs, and it sounds exhausting to have to learn how to cook a whole new way. I suspect the reasons we have a hard time turning toward God, “turning, then, and living!” are similar. 1) Sinful behaviors are often easier and sometimes more fun, and 2) we simply don’t know how, because the law, that is, what we can read here in Ezekiel, may show us what we need to do, but it does not give us the power to do it. Metaphorically speaking, it tells us to a eat plant-based diet, but doesn’t come over and show us how to cook a gourmet veggie-and-grain feast. So, when God urges us to get new hearts and new spirits… how do we even do that? 

This, of course, is where Jesus comes into the picture. God saw what a difficult time we were having with the whole obeying God’s law thing. Things seemed clear enough, fair enough, but humans kept on falling short. Enter Jesus. In his 30-some years on earth, Jesus showed us what justice looks like. It looks like repentance, like turning toward God. It looks like love, like unqualified service, like selfless giving. It looks like all those things Paul lists in our lesson from Philippians – like encouragement, consolation, sharing in the Spirit, compassion and sympathy, like doing nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regarding others as better than ourselves, looking not to our own interests, but to the interests of others. These are the things that we strive for when we strive for justice, and the things we realize, when we detect unfairness, are not present in the world around us.

So, Jesus shows us how to do and live these things, and we are grateful… but even such a perfect example does not give us the power to actually do them. And this is where we come back to grace, that unfair gift of God – because Jesus did not only show us how to live. Jesus was not only a really good example. If that were all Jesus was, then we might as well follow anyone else who ever lived who was a nice person. My mom is a nice person and a good teacher – we could follow her. 

But no, Jesus did more than teach and show us how to live. By the grace of God that allowed Jesus to die on our behalf so that we could live eternally, we are also energized, enabled, and empowered to live a life of faith. Grace gives us that power. The love of God gives us that power. And, when we inevitably fall short, grace also catches us, sets us back upright, and gives us what we need to try again.

And so just as Paul outlines for us some of the characteristics of one who lives in grace, he also urges us to be of the same mind as our Savior who empowers us by his love. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,” he urges. The same mind, the same mind that became a part of us at our baptism, when we were washed clean of sin and death, when we received the power of the Holy Spirit, when we were marked with the cross of Christ forever. “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus … for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” 

Let us pray… Energizing God, we know that our choices do not always lead to life, but we do want to turn toward you! Enable us to do so, to turn and live, so that we might be empowered to bring about justice in the world. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Full service: HERE.