Advent 1 in the RCL, Isaiah 64:1-9
Whew. Mark is like a breath of fresh air after a year of Matthew. Like an arrow that sinks far into its target, where before we had only a baseball bat, Mark aims and strikes more cleanly than Matthew. "What I say to you, I say to all: Keep awake." So clear, so crisp. "Keep awake."
And with those words, Advent begins. It's the start of new year--in fact, happy New Years to you all. The old green season wound its way down, growing older and colder. I often think years are like stars--stars like we learned about them in science class in junior high. The year/star begins in dissipation, elements circling. After the ignition, the star lives a long life, having some moments of excitement or danger but mostly shining bright. Eventually, the year/star fades, growing cooler. Most times, the star/year quietly collapses and dies, becoming a white dwarf--around forever, illuminating its future neighbors forever, but only as a memory. Occasionally, stars and years explode, wreaking havoc on everything and everyone. Either way, stars and years come to an end.
Here we are at the beginning. The concerns of a year ago have changed--new politics, new economic turmoil, less money. These little strings of matter, together with our stories, will combine together in a new star, a new year, a new story. Today truly is the first day of a new world.
Our text in Isaiah seems to be a in a similar place to us on this day. Standing at the edge of something gone, something dying, the writer reflects on the cycle of the years, the births and deaths of ages. The writer is thinking and writing about the ages past, comparing them to the 'now,' and turning to God to ask about the future. What exactly is the writer asking for? Let's go there in one moment.
But first let's notice the outstandingly beautiful language of this passage. It's full of extended metaphors, powerful images, and intriguing analogies. It's truly quite lovely, and it looks like poetry because it is. Poetry rewards close examination, so let's us see what our Scripture is calling to us today.
Our passage begins with exclamation: O! Come down! The call is passionate--get down here, God! The imagery that follows describes the years long past--back in the good ol' days, says Isaiah (or the writer we accept as Isaiah for literary conventions--not much difference, really), back in the good ol' days, God, you would come down and mountains would melt, the heavens would be torn. This is dramatic imagery for someone who never saw a movie with modern special effects--we're used to the idea that we can see on screen a mountain melt, or heavens torn, or nearly anything at all. But for this writer, these images are meant to stand out, to call attention, to shock.
The writer continues, talking about how in those old days, ('olam in the Hebrew--the age long past, or eternity--it's got those kind of connotations), God would come down, and you'd know it not only by the incredible geographic phenomena but also by the fact that God's enemies would be smashed. To be historical a moment, perhaps the writer here in the third part of Isaiah is thinking of the stories of Exodus and Deuteronomy--those stories of God's dramatic personal action in the world. The passage has a certain resonance with that kind of deuteronomic theology--God protects those following God's way, but smites those not following that way. In an interesting change from Deuteronomy, Isaiah here seems to think this blessing/curse extends not only to Israel but instead to everybody, building on Deuteronomy a bit.
Isaiah is longing for those old days when God was obviously taking care of things. Because in the 'now' for Isaiah, God isn't very evident, or evident at all. And without that blessing promised in those early stories of Exodus and Deuteronomy, everything has become worthless. The writer's image of a cloth is particularly striking--everything has become so that it has no more worth a dirty dash rag. Without God's light, the 'now' of Isaiah has become a place of 'iniquity,' of badness, and that badness is now reaping its natural reward: more badness.
And so Isaiah calls out at the end of our passage: you are still the potter, the one in control, the shaper, the artist, the visionary. We are still matter, mud, dirt. Don't always be absent--come back. Come back for everybody.
If this all seems very far away and esoteric, it doesn't need to. Isaiah's 'now' seems a good bit like our 'now.' We too remember when God was active in the past. We, too, smile when we remember meeting God at church, outdoors, at summer camp, in the mall, driving down the road, giving our time at a nursing home, singing Christmas carols, spending time with our families. We remember those times with hope, when God's purpose seemed obvious. Or we can even think further back. We hear stories every Sunday and during the week of God's miraculous actions--arks and floods, touching and healing, cancer and remission, people and reconciliation.
And we, like Isaiah, see the lost-ness of us all. Seeking entertainment above meaning, pleasure above friendship, my interest at the cost of all others, we try to be good and do not succeed. Not because we don't try. And we say to ourselves: you know, I wish it were the good old days, when good was obvious, when God was here! When mountains melted, you could tell what was what--but these days, who knows? Is it better to buy a hybrid car for fuel efficiency, or bad because of components in the battery? Is it better to give my money to refugees in my neighborhood, or to refugees in Sudan?
And so, we enter the place of Advent once more, the place of beginnings, the place of darkness, the place of longing. That's the problem, I think, with having the new year begin in our culture with a giant electronic ball on top of a building in New York. Beginnings aren't like that. Beginnings are dark, confusing, longing-filled places. They can be a great deal of fun, and they have a great deal of hope, or they can be quite scary. In any way, beginnings don't really feel like light falling to earth, the image on January 1st in New York. They feel more like pregnancy--not even sure something is going at the start, followed by sickness, inconvenience, discomfort, and the possibility of incredible joy.
As we hear these words from Isaiah this week, or on Sunday, they call us back to be mindful of the beginning of things. It's time to start afresh, anew, again, and any other a---- word you can think. Isaiah reminds us that we don't begin something new out of whole cloth--we build from what's around us, the past we have, the stories we know. Isaiah reminds us that even if 'now' feels pretty ho-hum and distant, this does not mean God has abandoned us forever. Even now, God has a plot and a plan and some thoughts about us, but God's new beginnings with us don't fall like a ball out of the sky. They begin slowly, with hints and nudges and a great deal of sitting. What is God beginning in your life? Where has God seemed absent? What good old days do you wish were back in your heart?
Mindfulness of our beginnings is central connecting theme between us and Isaiah this week.
But I would add one other. As Christians, we believe that God heard Isaiah's prayer--took it quite seriously, in fact, and became as obvious as God could be in becoming human, in becoming Christ. Now, Isaiah would never have imagined that this would fulfill the prayer he offered--Isaiah is clearly imagining the ground swallowing people up, great pestilence, pillars of fire by night, and so on to lead everyone to a better way of life. Yet, as Christians, we see Jesus as the very surprising answer to this plea.
What we might should notice is how surprising Jesus is as an answer to this plea. Isaiah wanted God's presence, but he never imagined God would do that. It wasn't on the radar or the calendar. And yet, I'd have to say, it fit the bill pretty well.
So, this Advent, as we think about what we wish God were doing; as we think about what our Christmas MUST be or it won't be any good; as we think we know exactly what God is doing in our world; perhaps we should recognize our deep kinship with Isaiah. We, too, are destined to be surprised. Where is God beginning something new in your that is totally, utterly surprising, and not at all what you thought you wanted?
So, as we mind our begins and consider surprise, let me say: have a blessed Advent.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
The Taste of Justice
Proper 29, aka Christ the King. Year A, Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
Alright: so I'm tired of the sheep and the goats in Matthew. Why, you ask? Because that reading is a true two-edged sword. On the one side, the blade cuts cleanly. Its challenge to take seriously the needs of the needy is poignant, and few passages of Scripture state the challenge so plainly. But on the other side, the sword is jagged. Too many people hear this Matthew passage and are quite sure that they know who the sheep are (us), and who the goats are (them). What's more, I would rank this passage among one of the most guilt-inducing in all of Scripture. Doubtless, some of this guilt is needed--how seriously are we taking the needs of prisoners? Not very, in this country. But I've also seen this passage eat the life from people, sucking joy away and leaving in its place a permanent dis-ease about what side of the sheep/goat line they 're standing on. Read out of context, the passage encourages people destroy their gifts in attempting to insure that they are certain to be on the non-goat side.
So, let's take a spin on the wild side. Let's talk about the end of all things through Ezekiel's eyes. Oddly, he too is fixated on the woolly side of life.
Honestly, what is it with Scripture and sheep? Roast them whole and eat them whole with loins girded; make Jesus our sacrificial lamb and priest; David only understands why having a man killed for his sex-life is bad when he's compared to a sheep-stealer; Abel keeps sheep, and God likes that better (gets him killed by his brother, though); shepherds, presumably sheep at hand, are among the first to hear of Christ's coming. At least Paul makes tents rather than tends sheep. Someone's gotta branch out.
At any rate: Ezekiel leads us on a different kind of sheep-chase from Matthew, and perhaps one that might change how we hear words about God's coming judgment. Ezekiel doesn't seem to refer too overtly to the end of all created reality. This business about a return after a day of clouds and thick darkness sounds a bit like "The Day of the Lord," the day when the Lord comes to settle accounts and un/re-make the world--like in Joel. But it's not entirely obvious--instead, Ezekiel seems to be thinking of a Great Return after a Great Scattering, and it's almost like he intends to leave it in those archetypal terms.
Of course, he also has something far more specific in mind--namely, the Exile, and then the Return. Israel was carried off to a foreign land, the nation ended and worship was ruined. Thick darkness indeed. But, says Ezekiel, this will not be a permanent state of things. God will come pull them back together. Indeed, it sounds like God is taking a personal interest in it. The verses prior to this passage talk about how the supposed shepherds of Israel have blown it, and blown it big time. It's not that they made small foul-ups--they've totally neglected the sheep. So, God has decided to become involved personally, and now God is going to gather up the sheep. In fact, a verse or two later, God says: I myself will be the shepherd.
These are hopeful words to a hurting people. The pastoral images are all ones of fullness--taking a break in meadows, having enough to eat and drink, no longer hunted by predators. This is what those earlier shepherds should've been doing, but now God is going to make sure this is accomplished. These are hopeful words for those punched aside. Ezekiel proceeds to describe the total-failure shepherds as fat sheep.
And Ezekiel makes a strange statement: that God will feed them justice. The 'them,' strangely, seems to be both the fat and lean, the bad shepherds and abused people. Justice will be given to them all equally--some it will destroy, others it will lift up. It's a fascinating image, that in the end, we all share one diet with many effects: justice.
That's an image we've lost sight of: that we'll all receive the same thing from God. That from God, we all will eat one thing together, and that thing will be justice. Sweet to some, not so to others.
Part of this is that we no longer believe in justice. I increasingly find this to be true. I think we as Americans have relegated justice to the recycling bin of idealism. We believe not that the Supreme Court deals in justice, but that by stacking certain appointees, we can have certain outcomes. We all believe that the more money a defendent has, the more likely they are to get off. We have all watched Gitmo now for a years, a land that we are told it quite literally outside the bounds of justice, where no one can know the reasons for being there, not even at trial, and no one can leave. The very fact that we have slang for it that appears in pop songs--"Gitmo" and not Guatanamo Bay--suggests how used to the idea we are, whether we think it acceptable or not. We've all seen police beat protesters, rioters beat police. We don't believe in justice anymore--as a people, we seem more inclined to believe that 'justice', meaning a victory, goes to the one with more money or a bigger.
We don't talk about justice much anymore because we think justice is a matter of opinion, a codeword for covering up the rule of the strong. And because we all accept this, rather than try understand our different understandings of God's justice, we try to 'win' through changing the justices, stacking the court, altering the jury, and we yell at each other in harsh rhetoric because, of course, only the heaviest hammer could damage our opponent.
But not so for Ezekiel. Ezekiel promises that in the end, we do all share one thing in common: God's justice. God is not affected by race or bribes, and he will come personally and make sure that we receive our justice.
So, is that good news or bad? It's tough to say, and that is the mystery of speaking about the end of the world. That's what gets old about that passage we hear today in Matthew--too many of us act as though it strips all mystery away, even though if we'd read the passage carefully we'd notice that everyone is surprised to discover what side of the sheep/goat dichotomy they end up on. But the end of the world is both good and bad news: it's justice for all, and that's bound to be good for some, and bad for others. Ezekiel does not believe that the world will go on forever. Someday, God will gather us back together, and God will see to doing what we have been so bad at doing ourselves--sharing our resources, offering justice to all regardless of class, race, and gender.
So let's say it: there's bad news about the end of the world. It's hard for us as Americans not to notice that it's the fat sheep that are in trouble, that it's the bad shepherds who have let everyone down. That feels too much like us. And justice might not feel very fair to someone who has hidden his head in the ground, never noticing those nearby.
But let's also say it: the good news from Ezekiel sounds really good. If we have learned to love God's justice, it probably won't taste so bad. And at the end of things, it won't be some bribed corporate jerk who comes to give us a pink slip. It'll be God, personally looking into our case. And this is the same God who shows a depth of love that is amazing. This is a God who will personally see that the predators are one day gone and arrange it so that we can finally drink some fresh water.
So, if we have a call from this lesson, it's the call to get to know God's justice, learn to love it, start practicing it now. If we're not sure what God's justice looks like, well, it's about to be a whole new liturgical year. That would be an interesting New Years resolution: this year, I'm going to learn some things about God's justice. We are called to learn something about care for our neighbors, and start doing something for those least among us. We are called to learn to love others as much as ourselves. We are called to work at loving God with whatever we've got, because whatever we've got will serve perfectly well.
Because in the end--and things will end one way or another--there will be only one thing to eat. What will it taste like? Will it taste like lamb? That would be both ironic and weirdly appropriate.
But, for us, the call of the Christian life is to learn to love the taste of God's justice, to create schools that teach how to love the taste of God's justice, to participate in communities that revel in the taste of God's justice. And as the mystics and deeply spiritual among us have reported for thousands of years, the more we follow the course of God's justice, the more it tastes like love. Who knew? The end of the world tastes like justice, and that justice tastes like love. Perhaps there is good news here after all.
Here's to the end of a liturgical year--may we all enjoy the taste of God's justice and love in this world and the next.
Alright: so I'm tired of the sheep and the goats in Matthew. Why, you ask? Because that reading is a true two-edged sword. On the one side, the blade cuts cleanly. Its challenge to take seriously the needs of the needy is poignant, and few passages of Scripture state the challenge so plainly. But on the other side, the sword is jagged. Too many people hear this Matthew passage and are quite sure that they know who the sheep are (us), and who the goats are (them). What's more, I would rank this passage among one of the most guilt-inducing in all of Scripture. Doubtless, some of this guilt is needed--how seriously are we taking the needs of prisoners? Not very, in this country. But I've also seen this passage eat the life from people, sucking joy away and leaving in its place a permanent dis-ease about what side of the sheep/goat line they 're standing on. Read out of context, the passage encourages people destroy their gifts in attempting to insure that they are certain to be on the non-goat side.
So, let's take a spin on the wild side. Let's talk about the end of all things through Ezekiel's eyes. Oddly, he too is fixated on the woolly side of life.
Honestly, what is it with Scripture and sheep? Roast them whole and eat them whole with loins girded; make Jesus our sacrificial lamb and priest; David only understands why having a man killed for his sex-life is bad when he's compared to a sheep-stealer; Abel keeps sheep, and God likes that better (gets him killed by his brother, though); shepherds, presumably sheep at hand, are among the first to hear of Christ's coming. At least Paul makes tents rather than tends sheep. Someone's gotta branch out.
At any rate: Ezekiel leads us on a different kind of sheep-chase from Matthew, and perhaps one that might change how we hear words about God's coming judgment. Ezekiel doesn't seem to refer too overtly to the end of all created reality. This business about a return after a day of clouds and thick darkness sounds a bit like "The Day of the Lord," the day when the Lord comes to settle accounts and un/re-make the world--like in Joel. But it's not entirely obvious--instead, Ezekiel seems to be thinking of a Great Return after a Great Scattering, and it's almost like he intends to leave it in those archetypal terms.
Of course, he also has something far more specific in mind--namely, the Exile, and then the Return. Israel was carried off to a foreign land, the nation ended and worship was ruined. Thick darkness indeed. But, says Ezekiel, this will not be a permanent state of things. God will come pull them back together. Indeed, it sounds like God is taking a personal interest in it. The verses prior to this passage talk about how the supposed shepherds of Israel have blown it, and blown it big time. It's not that they made small foul-ups--they've totally neglected the sheep. So, God has decided to become involved personally, and now God is going to gather up the sheep. In fact, a verse or two later, God says: I myself will be the shepherd.
These are hopeful words to a hurting people. The pastoral images are all ones of fullness--taking a break in meadows, having enough to eat and drink, no longer hunted by predators. This is what those earlier shepherds should've been doing, but now God is going to make sure this is accomplished. These are hopeful words for those punched aside. Ezekiel proceeds to describe the total-failure shepherds as fat sheep.
And Ezekiel makes a strange statement: that God will feed them justice. The 'them,' strangely, seems to be both the fat and lean, the bad shepherds and abused people. Justice will be given to them all equally--some it will destroy, others it will lift up. It's a fascinating image, that in the end, we all share one diet with many effects: justice.
That's an image we've lost sight of: that we'll all receive the same thing from God. That from God, we all will eat one thing together, and that thing will be justice. Sweet to some, not so to others.
Part of this is that we no longer believe in justice. I increasingly find this to be true. I think we as Americans have relegated justice to the recycling bin of idealism. We believe not that the Supreme Court deals in justice, but that by stacking certain appointees, we can have certain outcomes. We all believe that the more money a defendent has, the more likely they are to get off. We have all watched Gitmo now for a years, a land that we are told it quite literally outside the bounds of justice, where no one can know the reasons for being there, not even at trial, and no one can leave. The very fact that we have slang for it that appears in pop songs--"Gitmo" and not Guatanamo Bay--suggests how used to the idea we are, whether we think it acceptable or not. We've all seen police beat protesters, rioters beat police. We don't believe in justice anymore--as a people, we seem more inclined to believe that 'justice', meaning a victory, goes to the one with more money or a bigger.
We don't talk about justice much anymore because we think justice is a matter of opinion, a codeword for covering up the rule of the strong. And because we all accept this, rather than try understand our different understandings of God's justice, we try to 'win' through changing the justices, stacking the court, altering the jury, and we yell at each other in harsh rhetoric because, of course, only the heaviest hammer could damage our opponent.
But not so for Ezekiel. Ezekiel promises that in the end, we do all share one thing in common: God's justice. God is not affected by race or bribes, and he will come personally and make sure that we receive our justice.
So, is that good news or bad? It's tough to say, and that is the mystery of speaking about the end of the world. That's what gets old about that passage we hear today in Matthew--too many of us act as though it strips all mystery away, even though if we'd read the passage carefully we'd notice that everyone is surprised to discover what side of the sheep/goat dichotomy they end up on. But the end of the world is both good and bad news: it's justice for all, and that's bound to be good for some, and bad for others. Ezekiel does not believe that the world will go on forever. Someday, God will gather us back together, and God will see to doing what we have been so bad at doing ourselves--sharing our resources, offering justice to all regardless of class, race, and gender.
So let's say it: there's bad news about the end of the world. It's hard for us as Americans not to notice that it's the fat sheep that are in trouble, that it's the bad shepherds who have let everyone down. That feels too much like us. And justice might not feel very fair to someone who has hidden his head in the ground, never noticing those nearby.
But let's also say it: the good news from Ezekiel sounds really good. If we have learned to love God's justice, it probably won't taste so bad. And at the end of things, it won't be some bribed corporate jerk who comes to give us a pink slip. It'll be God, personally looking into our case. And this is the same God who shows a depth of love that is amazing. This is a God who will personally see that the predators are one day gone and arrange it so that we can finally drink some fresh water.
So, if we have a call from this lesson, it's the call to get to know God's justice, learn to love it, start practicing it now. If we're not sure what God's justice looks like, well, it's about to be a whole new liturgical year. That would be an interesting New Years resolution: this year, I'm going to learn some things about God's justice. We are called to learn something about care for our neighbors, and start doing something for those least among us. We are called to learn to love others as much as ourselves. We are called to work at loving God with whatever we've got, because whatever we've got will serve perfectly well.
Because in the end--and things will end one way or another--there will be only one thing to eat. What will it taste like? Will it taste like lamb? That would be both ironic and weirdly appropriate.
But, for us, the call of the Christian life is to learn to love the taste of God's justice, to create schools that teach how to love the taste of God's justice, to participate in communities that revel in the taste of God's justice. And as the mystics and deeply spiritual among us have reported for thousands of years, the more we follow the course of God's justice, the more it tastes like love. Who knew? The end of the world tastes like justice, and that justice tastes like love. Perhaps there is good news here after all.
Here's to the end of a liturgical year--may we all enjoy the taste of God's justice and love in this world and the next.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
More than one post a week?!?!? Scandalous!
But nonetheless, if you haven't seen this yet, now is your time. It's worth your 5 minutes--share it with every parishioner you know.
What if Starbucks were marketed like church?
What if Starbucks were marketed like church?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Joyful Giving, or the Lack of a Broker's Fee
Proper 28, Year A: Matthew 25:14-30 (in the RCL)
Perhaps you, like me, have heard this 'parable of talents' more than a thousand times. The fact that 'talent' means an amount of money (apparently an ungodly amount of money) is usually lost on the sermon-giver, and they make the nice slide in English into making them 'talents' of a different kind, like the ability to do ballet, ride a unicycle, or burp the alphabet. I'm quite sure that I've done this in the past, so I include myself among those questionable preachers who quickly read this passage, pretend it's not about money, and jump immediately to telling people that we all ought to be using our 'talents' for the good of the church. Namely, teaching Sunday school, because there are never enough volunteers for that time-consuming and thankless job.
But in our world today, this is downright surprising lesson. "The Lord spoke once; twice have I heard it" indeed.
It's a whole story about how, when given a bunch of money, some folks go about and shrewdly invest it. When they double their money--that would be a 100% profit--they are congratulated. When the one guy who keeps his money under his mattress comes forward, he says he did it because the marketplace was scary, and he didn't want to make his even scarier master angry. The master proves that he is, therefore, the scarier of the two, and berates the the guy for not at least having kept his money in an interest-bearing account. Then, the master takes all the money from the poor guy, gives it to the rich guy, and promises the poor guy unending torture in a place outside the realms of American law and the Geneva conventions.
This story just sounds so damn poignant at the moment. Who are we talking about these days but investors trying to make money? What are we talking about but lending, interest, and savings? I mean, consider: the investors in the story are even making money on borrowed money. It's eerie.
But if this parable seems to have strange resonances with our own time, the resonances bring forward how weird this parable is. First off, it seems downright unfair to be mean to the fearful investor. After all, he had the least 'ability' of the three according to the story, so we already know he was pretty dumb. This seems to contrast with the image we usually have of Jesus defending 'the least.' Second, it's strange to see something that looks so pro-capitalism here in the gospels. After all, in traditional Jewish teachings, charging one another interest (meaning other Israelites) was forbidden, so investing would be tough, particularly as Jesus is in the midst of expanding who exactly is covered under the umbrella of 'chosen.' What a strange story.
So, let's back it up. Let's drop our preconceptions about capitalism, stock market economics, and credit default swaps. Let's try the story again. It's a story that, I think, rewards careful attention to detail.
First of all, the investors of the story are slaves--that alone runs strongly against the kind of prophet-status that investors hold in our culture. Second, they are investing someone else's money, but it's their master's, not a client's. Because of this, notice something that seems very strange from our perspective: they don't charge a broker's fee. Surely, if they master wanted them to make money, they should be granted a certain percentage of the gains, a 'broker's fee.' But they don't, mostly because that's not the kind of relationship they seem to have with their master. I'll come back to that in a moment.
And the third guy, the poor guy, the dumb guy--he's terrified. He does, after all, have a master who shows up all over the place expecting money from land he didn't even plant and hasn't cared for himself. So the third guy chickens out, hides his money in a hole, and timidly returns it.
So first of all, the story is definitely about money. On a secondary level, sure, it's about the gifts that everyone receives, but it's also about money--who has got it, what they do with it. And in the story, it's made abundantly clear that the money belongs to none of the slaves. If we are to see ourselves as the slaves in this story, we have a painful lesson to learn: our money isn't ours.
And this, of course, is why there is no broker's fee. God owes us no money for the services we render because all of our money is already God's. We can spend it however we like, horde it however much we wish, lend as we choose, but it does not make us live forever, and so it is never truly belongs to us. We have no final say in its use because our money will outlive us.
But without a broker's fee, why should the investors try to make money with what they're given? And if we are those slaves, that question belongs to us: why should we use our money for the good of others, for the good of God? After all, the money belongs to God--I won't see any profit from it.
And here is the central challenge of this parable: why exactly do those two investors choose to double their money? The story doesn't tell us, perhaps intentionally so. Why do they choose to go ahead and invest anyway, rather than sit back in fear as the third slave does? It appears that in trying to give their master back the money, they receive even more--there's that line about 'you've been faithful in a little, so now I give you much'. But this seems to be a surprise--neither seem to have worked so diligently with the money because they thought they were going to receive anything.
Perhaps because self-interested economic reasoning is not the kind that belongs to the Kingdom of God. Perhaps the two who chose to invest did so not because they would make money. Perhaps they did it because they thought it was fun.
Fun is an unusual word in talking about God, and that seems unfortunate. But for "fun" here, we could substitute fancier things like: they were thankful to receive that money, or they were participating in a gift-economy that inspires sharing. But let's drop the fancy-talk for a minute--they wanted to have more fun.
They decided not to be scared of their overbearing master--they decided instead: ah hell, I've got 5 talents. Let's see what I can do with it! Did they invest it in wind-power? Clean water wells in Africa? Their neighborhood soup kitchen? Who knows--but they must have done it with both a kind of wisdom and a kind of joy. They loved their borrowed talents so much that they jumped courageously into the world, not because the master ordered them to but because they were so excited they couldn't contain themselves. They were adventurous, courage, and fun.
Why does the third guy get in trouble? Not because he's dumb, and not because he has less money. But because of his fear, he's not willing to have fun, because having fun is always a risk, a chance to have a heart broken, a toy smashed, a leg in a cast, or to be forced into spending some time in the principal's office. Fear cripples him, and he can only whine when he hands back his cash. But the master, it turns out, is a great lover of fun, and he does not care for this fearful approach.
So, we should be honest: why should we give money to the church? To Episcopal Relief and Development? To Doctors without Borders? Because it's fun. Because giving money is exciting. I think most stewardship campaigns go sideways right at this point--the reason we give money is not for programs, or buildings, or spiritual care. We are called to invest and share our talents shrewdly and joyfully, and we spend too much time in the 'shrewd' part. Christian giving does not begin as though we were all landlords, trying to put together a social organization or a countryclub for our ongoing spiritual care. Christian giving begins in realizing that we are all slaves, that we've been given more than we can possibly know what to do with, and we've been charged to go make something. Christiangiving begins by saying: awesome, let's do something!
I firmly believe that among the two or three things that are actually damaging to the church in our time, the most subtle of these diseases is that we are afraid to be exciting. We want to bury ourselves in mattresses, or in the ground, where economies don't crash, where jobs aren't lost. We want to bury ourselves in the same hymns of our childhood, whether they were from 1940 or the happy-clappy tunes of camp, and pretend that we don't need to grow. We want to hide in the ground, the same pew of the same building, because maybe then we can appease that awful and scary God who demands so much. How much easier to hide our talents in the same Christmas service we've done every year for the last 50 than to ask myself, sitting around the vestry table: am I actually excited about what we're talking about? How much easier to join the football-crowd mentality of a fundamentalist congregation than to ask myself: do I actually like this?
But God calls us to a different kind of life. We are called to be joyful, to be actually excited about sharing the wealth that is not ours. It may sound strange, but I remain convinced that the one of the greatest challenges of our age is to re-discover the joy of giving, the joy of relationship with God. We are called not to a life in the ground, but instead to a life in the marketplace--bargaining, laughing, investing, using what we got for something far bigger than any of us.
Perhaps you, like me, have heard this 'parable of talents' more than a thousand times. The fact that 'talent' means an amount of money (apparently an ungodly amount of money) is usually lost on the sermon-giver, and they make the nice slide in English into making them 'talents' of a different kind, like the ability to do ballet, ride a unicycle, or burp the alphabet. I'm quite sure that I've done this in the past, so I include myself among those questionable preachers who quickly read this passage, pretend it's not about money, and jump immediately to telling people that we all ought to be using our 'talents' for the good of the church. Namely, teaching Sunday school, because there are never enough volunteers for that time-consuming and thankless job.
But in our world today, this is downright surprising lesson. "The Lord spoke once; twice have I heard it" indeed.
It's a whole story about how, when given a bunch of money, some folks go about and shrewdly invest it. When they double their money--that would be a 100% profit--they are congratulated. When the one guy who keeps his money under his mattress comes forward, he says he did it because the marketplace was scary, and he didn't want to make his even scarier master angry. The master proves that he is, therefore, the scarier of the two, and berates the the guy for not at least having kept his money in an interest-bearing account. Then, the master takes all the money from the poor guy, gives it to the rich guy, and promises the poor guy unending torture in a place outside the realms of American law and the Geneva conventions.
This story just sounds so damn poignant at the moment. Who are we talking about these days but investors trying to make money? What are we talking about but lending, interest, and savings? I mean, consider: the investors in the story are even making money on borrowed money. It's eerie.
But if this parable seems to have strange resonances with our own time, the resonances bring forward how weird this parable is. First off, it seems downright unfair to be mean to the fearful investor. After all, he had the least 'ability' of the three according to the story, so we already know he was pretty dumb. This seems to contrast with the image we usually have of Jesus defending 'the least.' Second, it's strange to see something that looks so pro-capitalism here in the gospels. After all, in traditional Jewish teachings, charging one another interest (meaning other Israelites) was forbidden, so investing would be tough, particularly as Jesus is in the midst of expanding who exactly is covered under the umbrella of 'chosen.' What a strange story.
So, let's back it up. Let's drop our preconceptions about capitalism, stock market economics, and credit default swaps. Let's try the story again. It's a story that, I think, rewards careful attention to detail.
First of all, the investors of the story are slaves--that alone runs strongly against the kind of prophet-status that investors hold in our culture. Second, they are investing someone else's money, but it's their master's, not a client's. Because of this, notice something that seems very strange from our perspective: they don't charge a broker's fee. Surely, if they master wanted them to make money, they should be granted a certain percentage of the gains, a 'broker's fee.' But they don't, mostly because that's not the kind of relationship they seem to have with their master. I'll come back to that in a moment.
And the third guy, the poor guy, the dumb guy--he's terrified. He does, after all, have a master who shows up all over the place expecting money from land he didn't even plant and hasn't cared for himself. So the third guy chickens out, hides his money in a hole, and timidly returns it.
So first of all, the story is definitely about money. On a secondary level, sure, it's about the gifts that everyone receives, but it's also about money--who has got it, what they do with it. And in the story, it's made abundantly clear that the money belongs to none of the slaves. If we are to see ourselves as the slaves in this story, we have a painful lesson to learn: our money isn't ours.
And this, of course, is why there is no broker's fee. God owes us no money for the services we render because all of our money is already God's. We can spend it however we like, horde it however much we wish, lend as we choose, but it does not make us live forever, and so it is never truly belongs to us. We have no final say in its use because our money will outlive us.
But without a broker's fee, why should the investors try to make money with what they're given? And if we are those slaves, that question belongs to us: why should we use our money for the good of others, for the good of God? After all, the money belongs to God--I won't see any profit from it.
And here is the central challenge of this parable: why exactly do those two investors choose to double their money? The story doesn't tell us, perhaps intentionally so. Why do they choose to go ahead and invest anyway, rather than sit back in fear as the third slave does? It appears that in trying to give their master back the money, they receive even more--there's that line about 'you've been faithful in a little, so now I give you much'. But this seems to be a surprise--neither seem to have worked so diligently with the money because they thought they were going to receive anything.
Perhaps because self-interested economic reasoning is not the kind that belongs to the Kingdom of God. Perhaps the two who chose to invest did so not because they would make money. Perhaps they did it because they thought it was fun.
Fun is an unusual word in talking about God, and that seems unfortunate. But for "fun" here, we could substitute fancier things like: they were thankful to receive that money, or they were participating in a gift-economy that inspires sharing. But let's drop the fancy-talk for a minute--they wanted to have more fun.
They decided not to be scared of their overbearing master--they decided instead: ah hell, I've got 5 talents. Let's see what I can do with it! Did they invest it in wind-power? Clean water wells in Africa? Their neighborhood soup kitchen? Who knows--but they must have done it with both a kind of wisdom and a kind of joy. They loved their borrowed talents so much that they jumped courageously into the world, not because the master ordered them to but because they were so excited they couldn't contain themselves. They were adventurous, courage, and fun.
Why does the third guy get in trouble? Not because he's dumb, and not because he has less money. But because of his fear, he's not willing to have fun, because having fun is always a risk, a chance to have a heart broken, a toy smashed, a leg in a cast, or to be forced into spending some time in the principal's office. Fear cripples him, and he can only whine when he hands back his cash. But the master, it turns out, is a great lover of fun, and he does not care for this fearful approach.
So, we should be honest: why should we give money to the church? To Episcopal Relief and Development? To Doctors without Borders? Because it's fun. Because giving money is exciting. I think most stewardship campaigns go sideways right at this point--the reason we give money is not for programs, or buildings, or spiritual care. We are called to invest and share our talents shrewdly and joyfully, and we spend too much time in the 'shrewd' part. Christian giving does not begin as though we were all landlords, trying to put together a social organization or a countryclub for our ongoing spiritual care. Christian giving begins in realizing that we are all slaves, that we've been given more than we can possibly know what to do with, and we've been charged to go make something. Christiangiving begins by saying: awesome, let's do something!
I firmly believe that among the two or three things that are actually damaging to the church in our time, the most subtle of these diseases is that we are afraid to be exciting. We want to bury ourselves in mattresses, or in the ground, where economies don't crash, where jobs aren't lost. We want to bury ourselves in the same hymns of our childhood, whether they were from 1940 or the happy-clappy tunes of camp, and pretend that we don't need to grow. We want to hide in the ground, the same pew of the same building, because maybe then we can appease that awful and scary God who demands so much. How much easier to hide our talents in the same Christmas service we've done every year for the last 50 than to ask myself, sitting around the vestry table: am I actually excited about what we're talking about? How much easier to join the football-crowd mentality of a fundamentalist congregation than to ask myself: do I actually like this?
But God calls us to a different kind of life. We are called to be joyful, to be actually excited about sharing the wealth that is not ours. It may sound strange, but I remain convinced that the one of the greatest challenges of our age is to re-discover the joy of giving, the joy of relationship with God. We are called not to a life in the ground, but instead to a life in the marketplace--bargaining, laughing, investing, using what we got for something far bigger than any of us.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Proper 27, Year A: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Following track 1 in the RCL:
I think any sermon this week probably needed to wait for its writing until after Tuesday. It was bound to be a tumultuous week no matter what side of the political barbwire we happen to be standing on.
So I would like you, for a moment, to take a deep breath. Whether you're ecstatic that Barak Obama won, or unhappy, lay that down. Set aside these many years(!) of campaigning, and feel your shoulders relax, although I think we all know that it might take months for us to let all this go. Let's talk for a minute about where we are.
Here, we've elected a president whose rhetoric has always hovered around the word 'hope.' Always, his conversation has turned on a hope for a future from a difficult present, and he has held up his own biography as an example of how what is broken can be healed, and what was disadvantaged can grow to wisdom and thoughtfulness. It feels like a step into the future, a change of the guard. It looks and feels like a new generation taking power. Young children will be playing in the White House. An African-American family will be living in that White House (the irony is lost on no one). It feels like the brink of a new era. Again, set aside whether you think this is a good or bad decision, a good or a bad era on whose cusp we are standing, and let's recognize something: something new is being done.
Will this new era work out for good? Now that's a interesting question.
Will the economic crisis find healing, and what would 'healing' our economy mean anyway? Was it healthy to begin with? Will our hopes for some kind of fairer and affordable health care happen? What does a just system of taxation look like? Governments always struggle with these questions of justice, money, and war, and we have all been told to hope for this new future, which began sometime this week.
Now, I want us to set aside our ecstasy and sadness for a moment because this picture parallels surprisingly well with the story we hear today in Joshua. The story we hear today is the story of a people entering a new era. The old wilderness days are done, flat out done. They had their cost on the community--a whole generation died. The community, this people of Israel, have no money and no land. Their neighbors have grown scared of them, and that fear is for good reason--there are so many of them, and they have already begun to invade nearby countries to gain wealth and standing. But a new generation has arrived--Moses is gone, Joshua is here, and it's a new era.
It's as if they arrive at the edge of the Promise Land, and they see it. But suddenly, the realize: all of their mental energy had been directed toward arriving here. Arriving, however, is not everything. Now they have to live there. What will they do?
Will this new generation act in justice? Will they solve Israel's political and economic problems? Will they hold to their founding principles? And of course, what's most important in this story: will Israel be faithful to the God who called them out of Egypt, who spoke to their ancestor Abraham?
That's the setup for this story in Joshua, a story that sounds to my ears a great deal like our story.
So Joshua steps to the fore--he sees what others do not. And by the way, we have no reason to believe that all of Israel supported Joshua. Moses was fortunate enough to have the ground swallow anyone who rebelled against him, but the days of Moses are gone. Perhaps we should remember that not everyone liked Joshua, not everyone agreed with him. But leader he was, and he saw the confusion in their faces--how are they going to live in this new land?
He rehearses the history with them, and he demands: will they follow God? Will they be faithful? They all say: "Yeah! God did do all that, we'll follow!" Joshua, who is quickly becoming as hard a leader as Moses, replies: "You're not good enough. You can't do it. It will be very hard--a time of sacrifice (giving up the old gods), and a time of not knowing exactly what's going to happen to you (faith)." The people stand up straighter, brush the dust off their shirts, and reply: "Yes we can!" Joshua replies: then you are witnesses of your own oath. Today begins a new day, a new covenant for a new generation.
This story, a delightful one even in normal times, has much to offer us this week. In particular, the very premise of the story suggests something that we're missing in our national scene: a new era means a new covenant, a promise from all of us about a new way to live. Every generation must makes its covenant, and particularly for us, we know that every generation must make anew the covenant with God. The actions of the past position the faith of the present--they don't determine the faith of the present. In a new time, Joshua calls Israel to new promise and to renew the promise of faithfulness and sacrifice to God.
So as we enter our new time, whether we act with gladly anticipation or fearful resignation, it is time for a new generation to make a new covenant. And my own concern here is for our covenant with God, not with the government. It's time we take advantage of what our nation is presenting us recognize where we are: somewhere new.
Countless contradictory books litter the shelves about the changing faiths of America: evangelical, emerging church, virtual, Southern hemisphere-centric, gay. It's time to begin to articulate our covenant, or perhaps covenants--we seem increasingly doubtful about the monolithic nature of things. Joshua's story reminds us that as we enter a new time, it's time to renew our religious commitment, our relationship to God. A new era doesn't mean free and easy sailing; it doesn't mean the end of the past. But it is time to notice that something has changed--we're standing somewhere different. It does mean that it's time to stand at the edge of the Promised Land and say: what, you mean we're here? What do we do now? It's time to look into our individual faith communities and ask ourselves: who are we now? What does our covenant with God look like?
I also think Joshua's story has some strong criteria to offer us as we consider what that relationship to God will look like. He asks Israel to consider sacrifice and faithfulness to be foundations of that covenant--sacrifice of the old idols, and faithful love of God.
What idols need to die? What has been our idol in the stock market? How attached are we to being the superpower of Christianity? Is every single medical treatment worth it if its cost denies healthcare to others? And even more: what idols have we held as Christians, and for me, as an Episcopalian?
And will we be faithful? Does faithfulness look like social justice? Does it look like daily prayer? Will faithfulness happen online, and does that even matter? How will our communities escape the slow death of becoming social organizations and return to faithfulness?
Today, we begin to enter a new era. Today, we stand at the edge of the Promised Land. And as we do, we are being called to ask: how are we going to live here?
I think any sermon this week probably needed to wait for its writing until after Tuesday. It was bound to be a tumultuous week no matter what side of the political barbwire we happen to be standing on.
So I would like you, for a moment, to take a deep breath. Whether you're ecstatic that Barak Obama won, or unhappy, lay that down. Set aside these many years(!) of campaigning, and feel your shoulders relax, although I think we all know that it might take months for us to let all this go. Let's talk for a minute about where we are.
Here, we've elected a president whose rhetoric has always hovered around the word 'hope.' Always, his conversation has turned on a hope for a future from a difficult present, and he has held up his own biography as an example of how what is broken can be healed, and what was disadvantaged can grow to wisdom and thoughtfulness. It feels like a step into the future, a change of the guard. It looks and feels like a new generation taking power. Young children will be playing in the White House. An African-American family will be living in that White House (the irony is lost on no one). It feels like the brink of a new era. Again, set aside whether you think this is a good or bad decision, a good or a bad era on whose cusp we are standing, and let's recognize something: something new is being done.
Will this new era work out for good? Now that's a interesting question.
Will the economic crisis find healing, and what would 'healing' our economy mean anyway? Was it healthy to begin with? Will our hopes for some kind of fairer and affordable health care happen? What does a just system of taxation look like? Governments always struggle with these questions of justice, money, and war, and we have all been told to hope for this new future, which began sometime this week.
Now, I want us to set aside our ecstasy and sadness for a moment because this picture parallels surprisingly well with the story we hear today in Joshua. The story we hear today is the story of a people entering a new era. The old wilderness days are done, flat out done. They had their cost on the community--a whole generation died. The community, this people of Israel, have no money and no land. Their neighbors have grown scared of them, and that fear is for good reason--there are so many of them, and they have already begun to invade nearby countries to gain wealth and standing. But a new generation has arrived--Moses is gone, Joshua is here, and it's a new era.
It's as if they arrive at the edge of the Promise Land, and they see it. But suddenly, the realize: all of their mental energy had been directed toward arriving here. Arriving, however, is not everything. Now they have to live there. What will they do?
Will this new generation act in justice? Will they solve Israel's political and economic problems? Will they hold to their founding principles? And of course, what's most important in this story: will Israel be faithful to the God who called them out of Egypt, who spoke to their ancestor Abraham?
That's the setup for this story in Joshua, a story that sounds to my ears a great deal like our story.
So Joshua steps to the fore--he sees what others do not. And by the way, we have no reason to believe that all of Israel supported Joshua. Moses was fortunate enough to have the ground swallow anyone who rebelled against him, but the days of Moses are gone. Perhaps we should remember that not everyone liked Joshua, not everyone agreed with him. But leader he was, and he saw the confusion in their faces--how are they going to live in this new land?
He rehearses the history with them, and he demands: will they follow God? Will they be faithful? They all say: "Yeah! God did do all that, we'll follow!" Joshua, who is quickly becoming as hard a leader as Moses, replies: "You're not good enough. You can't do it. It will be very hard--a time of sacrifice (giving up the old gods), and a time of not knowing exactly what's going to happen to you (faith)." The people stand up straighter, brush the dust off their shirts, and reply: "Yes we can!" Joshua replies: then you are witnesses of your own oath. Today begins a new day, a new covenant for a new generation.
This story, a delightful one even in normal times, has much to offer us this week. In particular, the very premise of the story suggests something that we're missing in our national scene: a new era means a new covenant, a promise from all of us about a new way to live. Every generation must makes its covenant, and particularly for us, we know that every generation must make anew the covenant with God. The actions of the past position the faith of the present--they don't determine the faith of the present. In a new time, Joshua calls Israel to new promise and to renew the promise of faithfulness and sacrifice to God.
So as we enter our new time, whether we act with gladly anticipation or fearful resignation, it is time for a new generation to make a new covenant. And my own concern here is for our covenant with God, not with the government. It's time we take advantage of what our nation is presenting us recognize where we are: somewhere new.
Countless contradictory books litter the shelves about the changing faiths of America: evangelical, emerging church, virtual, Southern hemisphere-centric, gay. It's time to begin to articulate our covenant, or perhaps covenants--we seem increasingly doubtful about the monolithic nature of things. Joshua's story reminds us that as we enter a new time, it's time to renew our religious commitment, our relationship to God. A new era doesn't mean free and easy sailing; it doesn't mean the end of the past. But it is time to notice that something has changed--we're standing somewhere different. It does mean that it's time to stand at the edge of the Promised Land and say: what, you mean we're here? What do we do now? It's time to look into our individual faith communities and ask ourselves: who are we now? What does our covenant with God look like?
I also think Joshua's story has some strong criteria to offer us as we consider what that relationship to God will look like. He asks Israel to consider sacrifice and faithfulness to be foundations of that covenant--sacrifice of the old idols, and faithful love of God.
What idols need to die? What has been our idol in the stock market? How attached are we to being the superpower of Christianity? Is every single medical treatment worth it if its cost denies healthcare to others? And even more: what idols have we held as Christians, and for me, as an Episcopalian?
And will we be faithful? Does faithfulness look like social justice? Does it look like daily prayer? Will faithfulness happen online, and does that even matter? How will our communities escape the slow death of becoming social organizations and return to faithfulness?
Today, we begin to enter a new era. Today, we stand at the edge of the Promised Land. And as we do, we are being called to ask: how are we going to live here?
Learns to blog!
I continue to work on somethings--I think you can post "comments" as these crazy kids are calling them now as long as you have a gmail account, which is likely to include almost all civilized beings. Also, I have to 'proof' the comment, so it may not appear instantly, but it'll be around.
And finally: at some point, should be interested in knowing when I post these things (which I assure you is likely to be weekly, ergo not cluttering your inbox), I think you click one of those buttons at the right to 'follow' it, or 'join' it, or some such.
And finally: at some point, should be interested in knowing when I post these things (which I assure you is likely to be weekly, ergo not cluttering your inbox), I think you click one of those buttons at the right to 'follow' it, or 'join' it, or some such.
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