Sermon - Reformation Sunday, 2020

 John 8:31-36, Romans 3:19-28 

                                                                Made Free 

One of the hallmarks of The Reformation is also one of the reasons why the message of The Reformation still hasn’t quite made it into the personal beliefs of many Christians.  It is restated in that last sentence of today’s Gospel text.  “So, if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” 

The “freedom” part is widely celebrated and appreciated.  What is missed is the process by which that freedom has come into our lives.  John could not be more clear – we are free because we have been MADE free.  

The Church for which Martin Luther wrote his catechisms had allowed itself to set up all sorts of hoops and roadblocks.  Luther’s writings grow out of his personal experience.  He was overcome with fear and anxiety as to whether he had done the right thing or enough of the right thing.  The Church had the 15^th century equivalent of Excel spreadsheets which tabulated the amount of time one would need to spend suffering in order to make up for the transgressions committed during their youth and childhood.  It is in response to such warnings and threats that Martin Luther began to share the words of scripture.  

The writings and words of Martin Luther were just too good to be true.  The peasants in the pews rejoiced to hear the Reformation’s message of a God who looks for opportunities to love us rather than reasons to condemn us.  It is always welcome news to be told that we are “free.” 

When we hear news “too good to be true,” our skeptical brains are inclined to start looking for reasons why it can’t be true.  And this is what began to happen, even before Martin Luther had finished his last sermon.  While the members of the congregations rejoiced to be out from under the thumb of the structures and systems put in place by the popes and archbishops, those same members were easily swayed into thinking this was just “too good to be true.”  Those folks talked to a few more folks and pretty soon you get to the point where even the denominations of The Reformation fail to consistently teach and preach that our freedom is the result of Christ’s work – and never, ever our own. 

“There must be something one has to do?”  It does seem logical.  Particularly in a society where individual effort is so clearly linked to that individual’s success.  

“Maybe it is a free gift, but someone has to untie the bow.” Is another subtle way of reinserting at least a bit of a hoop for one to jump through in order to be absolutely sure that justification is rightfully ours. 

No!  There are no hoops.  There are no prerequisites.  There are no preconditions.  “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” 

We dedicated a new banner some months ago.  It is clearly a Reformation Banner.  I created several weeks of confusion, as we were ordering it.  There are three critical words on that banner, the order of which can make all the difference in the world.  I raised questions as to the order of those words on that banner.  Those words are “Saved,” “Grace”, and “Faith.”  The order in which we place those reveals to us whether we hold firmly to that crucial Reformation insight or have begun to slip. 

“Saved,” “Grace”, and “Faith.  What is the order and relationship between these three words? 

One way of discerning is to ask which of the following best sums up how it is that you have received the assurance of salvation.  (Please note:  I am not associating these with whether or not you have received the assurance of salvation; merely how best to sum up what you have experienced.)  Is “faith” the vessel into which “grace” is poured?  Or is “grace” the gift which enables me to have “faith”? 

Do I need to repeat those options?  Is “faith” the vessel into which God is able to pour “grace”?  Or is it the “grace” of God which enables us to have “faith”? 

Many – practically most in this part of the world – would share the conviction that you have to have faith in order for grace to save you.  There is evidence of this in that ever popular painting of Jesus standing at the door, knocking.  Remember the all important feature about that door?  There is no doorknob on the outside.  Jesus can only come in if someone on the inside opens the door and lets him enter.  The painting expresses the conviction that  “Faith” is the mechanism for “grace” to enter one’s life. 

Martin Luther had a somewhat different understanding.  He writes of prevenient grace.  This is the “grace” which becomes active in our lives making “faith” possible.  God’s grace saves us; faith enables us to trust that this good news isn’t too good to be true.  Faith is the confidence to live lives without the fear and anxiety of fretting about the horrible things we have done and the loving acts we have failed to do.  We sing of this faith in the hymn, Amazing Grace.  “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear; and grace my fears relieved…..” 

We like to earn our own way, and we prefer to determine our own fate.  Even when this is a difficult path, we seem to prefer struggling along rather than being lifted and carried.  We may hope for a free scoop of ice-cream, but when it comes to our eternal fate, we won’t trust anything that could come that easily. 

I don’t expect everyone to jump on the Reformation bandwagon.  There is always a danger and a disastrous effect to everyone wearing the same jersey.   We need those who would remind us to be moral and hold to strong ethical standards.  Heck – I will remind you to do the right thing and think the appropriate thoughts.  But when it comes to being free – never, ever forget that we have been set free.  We are free because the Son has made us free.  Not because of our adherence to the deeds prescribed by the law. Not because of our obedience to some moral or ethical code.  And not because we merely say we agree with some statements or convictions. 

You have been given the gift of freedom.  “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

 Amen.

Sermon - 20th Sunday after Pentecost - Year A

Matthew 22:15-22 

Asking in Order to Learn           

            Once you start thinking about, it is difficult not to notice how many questions are actually statements of what the person pretending to ask the question already thinks, believes, or plans to do.  How about a few examples:

             “Is there any team in the ACC who can beat Clemson on the football field?”

            “Do you agree that wearing a facemask reduces the opportunity for spread?”

            “Have you ever seen a prettier sight than fall foliage? 

            Once you begin to notice, you begin to wonder if anyone asks a question in search an answer?  Heck, even “Would like fries with that?” is a pretty thinly veiled effort to tell you that you really ought to go ahead and indulge in a few hundred extra calories.  

            Questions are often/quite often/too often statements constructed in such a way as to allow a squiggly mark at the end.  They are not desires for additional information or insight or knowledge; rather they are intended to entrap or expose or belittle. 

It’s not really a question, it is a statement.  We aren’t looking for an answer - we are looking for an affirmation of what it is we already think.  

The Pharisees sent their disciples, along with the Herodians, to Jesus.  They came, supposedly, to ask a question.  But they weren’t interested in learning anything from Jesus.  They came hoping that his answer would justify what they already thought of him.  They didn’t want to learn; they wanted to bolster their own position.

Whenever we start to look at a passage of scripture, we need to make sure we remember the wider context into which it falls.  We are now in the 22^nd chapter of Matthew.  For the past three Sundays we have been reading lessons which received their impetus from a question put to Jesus by the chief priests and elders.  They were questioning Jesus’ authority, what right did he have to consider himself a teacher of the people.  Jesus rebuffed them, by a piece of trickery.  He said he would tell them the source of his authority if they would tell him where John’s authority came from.  The chief priests and elders wouldn’t answer Jesus.  As the text states, They argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’  But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for they regard John as a prophet.” 

The chief priests and elders weren’t interested in knowing the source of Jesus’ authority.  They wanted an affirmation of what they already thought.  

The parable of the man who sends his two sons into the vineyard; the story of the vineyard whose caretakers beat and murder the owner’s son in hopes of obtaining the vineyard for themselves; and last week’s reading of the Great Banquet to which the honored guests turn up their noses so that the giver of the banquet sends messengers into the streets to invite the good and the bad to the marriage feast - all of these are told in response to the attempt to discredit Jesus and turn the crowd against him.  

This attempt began with a question, a question posed by those who came to Jesus with no interest in learning from him.  They came only in the hope of entrapping him in his answer - they were trying to support their own positions.

The opening line of today’s Gospel reminds us of all this.  Matthew begins this exchange by acknowledging The Pharisees went and plotted to entrap [Jesus] in what he said.  So intent are they in getting the goods on this itinerant street preacher that they even fall into cahoots with their enemies.  

Note the reference to the Herodians?  The Herodians were the staunchest of the supporters of Roman oversight.  Remember that Rome had been asked to govern of Israel by those who were concerned with the infighting and disorganization of this tiny nation.  The Herodians were a party among the Jews who gladly paid the census tax and were grateful for the order Rome brought to Jerusalem. 

Herodians and Pharisees didn’t see things eye to eye.  The Pharisees had gained in popularity with the people because (in principle) they resented and resisted the tax.  While not quite as radicle as the nationalists who publicly refused to pay the tax, the Pharisees were known to be in opposition.  They resented Roman’s insistence that the tax be paid in Roman coins.  They considered it sacrilege to handle the coins which bore the inscription of Caesar, the god of Rome.  The Pharisees and the Herodians were not popular with one another.

Yet, together, they come.  They utter all sorts of platitudes to Jesus and then they ask their question.  But they aren’t looking for an answer; they are hoping for a response which will cause Jesus to fall out of favor with the people. 

This next part of the story is tricky.  A commentary brought to my attention a perspective I had previously overlooked.  Advocates of this story as an endorsement of the separation of church and state have repeatedly pointed out that Jesus himself doesn’t have one of the coins.  He asks for one from his questioners.  Their ability to produce one illustrates the gap between what they say and what they do.  They say one should resist paying the tax, resist handling the coins which bear the image of Caesar, and yet they continue to participate (and probably to benefit) from the economic system which they verbally deplore.  Their ability to produce a coin which bears the image of another god exposes their lack of integrity.

I have to be careful, because this text will come up in a few weeks – and it ought to be obvious that I haven’t written that sermon yet.  In the 23^rd chapter, Jesus is going to summarizes his encounters of the 21^st and 22^nd chapters.  He is going to point out that the Pharisees and the scribes sit in the seat of Moses.  They have the authority to be teachers of the Torah.  Somewhat surprisingly, Jesus is going to affirm the job they do as teachers of the law.  He is critical of the way they live.  There is a huge gap between what they say you should do and what they do.  They know what Jesus would do - they simply have trouble doing it.  They have confused knowing the correct response with living a faith-filled life. 

It is way too easy to confuse knowing the correct answer with living a faith-filled life.  And the gap between accurately teaching the law and living the law exists in our day no less than the times of Jesus. 

Does scripture or Christian theology leave any doubt as to whether the poor ought to have access to healthcare? 

Does scripture or Christian theology leave ambiguous how we are to respond to the alien among us? 

Is there confusion as to where the weekly repeated Apostles’ creed states we pledge our allegiance? 

No – those are not questions, either.  They are statements designed so as to allow me to put a swiggly mark at the end.  These are the questions modern-day Pharisees and Herodians might use in order to entrap Jesus (or Jesus’ followers).  

These are questions which might expose whether we read our bibles in order to learn from Jesus how to live in our world, or search our bibles looking for affirmations of what it is we already believe.

Amen.

Sermon - 18th Sunday after Pentecost - Year A

Matthew 21:33-46

                                                To Whom Is Jesus Speaking? 

            We are entering the 10^th month of the liturgical year.  This is Year A in our cycle of readings, which means the Gospel of Matthew is our primary text.  As this year was starting, I challenged each of you to read the whole of Matthew’s gospel each month.  How is that going?  

I start to grow weary of Matthew – as I think I have told you I prefer the Gospel of Luke.  While I appreciate the purpose of Matthew’s account, it bothers me when those who do not fully understand Matthew’s context begin to take his writings to mean something which Jesus would surely have never intended.  Today’s reading is an example. 

“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.” 

There are some who have taken these words (and others like them) as a justification for the condemnation (and even the destruction) of those classified as the unfaithful tenets.  There are some who have taken these words (and others like them) as a justification for the condemnation (and even the destruction) of the others among us who do not reflect the image of ourselves which we have so carefully created.  I am not saying that I have no need for the insights and contributions of Matthew’s work; I am pointing out that there is so much more to realize and to remember.  The Gospel of Matthew is carefully crafted to illustrate how the followers of Jesus stand most firmly in the tradition of Moses.  But, the Gospel of Matthew is not justification for hating, despising, and (yes) even the destruction of the Jewish people. 

Not all “Lutherans” are from Germany, and few of us can identify family living in those regions of the world.  But we do need to realize and remember the role “good Lutheran people” played in the Holocaust.  It was so much part and parcel of the thinking of my childhood congregation that I can’t even identify who said what we all simply accepted to be true.  There was an assumption that “the Jews had fallen out of favor with God because they were the ones who killed Jesus.”  As a child, I heard this passage from Matthew with such a backdrop.  I was being carefully taught to think of myself as the “newly chosen,” and rightful heir to the privileges thereof.  

How ridiculous.  It is inconceivable that Jesus would have even suggested that the Jewish people were from this point forward condemned and worthy of whatever mistreatment might come their way.  Inconceivable!  

What Jesus does condemn is any person or group of persons who assume for themselves a role greater than the one allotted to them by the God who created them.  Jesus’ words are not a warning against “the Jews”; they are a condemnation of any who would pretend they can run roughshod over others and fail to realize and remember how they got to where they are in the first place. 

Persons in positions of power are in peril of losing perspective.  It is not enough to be in control, there is a tendency to look for divine justification for being in control. 

The chief priests and Pharisees are the ones who understand that Jesus is speaking to them.  Jesus is condemning the ways in which they have placed themselves at the top of heap and from there defended their positions of power and authority.  They found themselves in control and they had found justification for why they belonged in such superior roles.  For the sake of our hearing what Jesus is saying we need to realize that it is incidental that all these persons were Jewish – OF COURSE THEY ARE JEWS!  What we need to hear is it the group of leaders who had sent themselves up as unchallenged authority whom Jesus critiques – not the whole of their ethnic and/or religious identity. 

One of the vestiges of whiteness is the tendency to see ourselves as individuals while seeing everyone else as one-of-the-whole.  This self-deception contributes to our not seeing any difference between the Chief Priests and the persons who came to the Temple; between the Sadducees and the Pharisees; and between the Jews of Galilee and the Jews of Jerusalem.  We see ourselves as individuals, but we tend to see all of them as, well, as “them.”  This illusion impedes our ability to hear how these lessons are speaking to us and they contribute to our quick desire to condemn (and in some instances destroy) a whole group of people.  

I mentioned Germany and the Holocaust earlier.  What happened there in the first third of the 20^th century was but one example of what has happened in so many places.  In the aftermath of WWII, we have developed the ability to condemn “those people”, while ignore the acts of genocide committed in this country and by “our” people.  

It is inconceivable that Jesus would have in any way intended that a whole class or group of persons were “those wretches (who are to be put) to a miserable death.”  

It is totally in keeping with Jesus’ words to realize and remember how easily power corrupts.  And that absolute power corrupts absolutely. 

There is an unsettling tone of condemnation being used these days in the references to God and faith and Christian identity.  Christian faith is never a defense of “our way of life.”  Christian identity is rooted in an awareness that we are but tenants in a garden planted and built and opened to us as an opportunity to bring glory and honor to the owner.  The garden is not ours to do with as we please, the garden is to reflect the design and desire of the one who owns it.  Anytime we start to think of ourselves as more than tenets, we are teetering on the edge of becoming the subject of Jesus’ parable.  

Christian faith is a way of living in which (at great peril to ourselves) we lift from the ditch the beaten and bloodied man who fell among robbers and we take him to the inn and we pay for him to be cared for and nurtured back to health. 

This is the hope God has for those whom he has placed in his garden.  This is the response hoped for, as God entrusts us with his world and among his children. 

Amen.