We are not dead yet

Philippians 1:21-30; September 18, 2011

The Rev. Shelby Ochs Owen; Trinity Church, Staunton

Why Go to Church?

One Sunday morning, a mother went in to wake her son and tell him it was time to get ready for church, to which he replied, "I'm not going."
"Why not?" she asked.
I'll give you two good reasons," he said.

(1), they don't like me, and

(2), I don't like them."
His mother replied, "I'll give you two good reasons why you SHOULD go to church:
(1) You're 39 years old, and (2)  . . . . . .  you're the pastor!" 

So why do we come to church?  Of course, we come to church for a variety of reasons.  If we did a survey at the end of the service we might be surprised at some of the answers.  Some might say, “to worship God”, “to sing”, “to please my wife”, “to see my friends”, “to be an example to my children”; some might even say “it helps my business to know more people” (and who’s to say that God doesn’t work through even motives like these?).  God knows our hearts and minds and whatever the surface reason might be for coming to church, the deeper reason for our gathering together is to pull us up out of our small, individual worlds, to recognize and be a part of something greater than ourselves, to wake us from our slumber, to set our sights on the Holy One, the Divine, to breathe in the new life that the Spirit offers.  We are looking for something that we do not yet have, something that cannot be found on our own, something that can help us grow and breathe fresh air.  Theologian Paul Tillich said, “beyond anything else, the church is simply primarily a group of people who express a new reality by which they have been grasped.”  This new reality is Christ.  We come to church, we are church because Christ has indeed grasped us and calls us together.  And he calls us to fruitful labor through which we can express that new reality.

In our reading from Philippians the apostle Paul speaks an amazing truth of his faith.  He just as soon die as live, which sounds depressing until we see just how profound and exhilarating his faith is.  “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.  If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer.  I am hard pressed between the two; my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.”   Paul’s deepest desire is to be with Christ; he is ready to die as he knows that just as we express in our own burial servicewhether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s possession.  And yet, his chief mission on earth is to bring the good news of Christ’s love and redemption to as many people as possible; Paul says, “ to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you”. His mission is for others. He even acknowledges that his stint in prison, from which he writes this letter, has done wonders to bring the gospel to more people. His mission is clear.  So even though his desire is to depart, to die, that he would be with Christ, he is compelled by his mission here on earth: “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.”

Over the course of my ordained ministry I have encountered a few deeply faithful elderly women who have shared with me that they were tired and they were ready to go, ready to die, ready to meet God. Their “golden years” weren’t feeling so golden and they wondered why God wouldn’t take them.  I don’t think we have to be elderly to have wondered this same sentiment at times.  Perhaps as a depressed teenager we have wondered, “Is this really all there is to life? Well I don’t need it.” Or perhaps we have gone through some deep sorrow or string of disappointments that has us shouting, “Just take me now, Lord!” 

But here we are. In the flesh.  Not dead yet. Perhaps we are not yet finished with our “fruitful labor”and it is time to consider, like the apostle Paul, that perhaps we exist not only for ourselves but to proclaim through our lives the goodness of God, the reality of Christ.

Like many of you I attended several concerts at the Staunton Music Festival a few weeks ago.  At a concert that featured Beethoven, I read this in the bulletin, quoting Beethoven himself: “Oh, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me…with joy I hasten towards death.  If it comes before I have had a chance to develop all my artistic capacities, it will still be coming too soon despite my harsh fate…Come when though wilt, I shall meet thee bravely.”  Beethoven had contemplated taking his own life as his deafness developed and yet he knew his “fruitful labor” was not yet over.  As one whose faith in God was experienced through art, this response of continuing to write music in spite of the difficulties was a true act of faith.

So what might be our “fruitful labor” by which we can express the new reality of Christ?  Here we are at the beginning of a new program year at Trinity.   If you look around you there are umpteen opportunities for folks- the music program, foreign mission trips, a prayer ministry, Bible studies, parlor groups, a book group, serving in our multiple outreach programs, all of which point to the reality of Christ.  One day this week we had a deeply troubled sojourner stop by Trinity.  I was carrying a box of Rolling Pin Bakery donuts, (and only feeling a little guilty about it since I was planning to share them), when I came across this bereft young man sitting on the bench by the labyrinth.  Obviously he had already been inside where someone on our staff had given him a Bible; after a conversation with him, I offered him a donut, invited him to stay for the healing service and for noon day lunch before he caught the 1:00 train back to his home.  Once we were in the healing service, the others who attended that service offered him a loving ear, asked what he needed, prayed for him and gave the young man a tour of the church. The reality of Christ was palpable in their respectful and loving attention.  I don’t know what became of the sojourner. I pray that he made it to his destination.  What I do know is that the church, here manifest in this group of caring individuals, offered him their “fruitful labor”and the sojourner offered his own remarkable faith to us.  Each person who encountered the young man gave him what they could give him.  Sometimes we miss the mark. Sometimes what we can give does not seem to be what a person needs but we try anyway and let God handle the results. 

Here we are. In the flesh. We are not dead yet. While we wait, can we offer one another the reality of Christ?

How Do We Forgive?

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Matthew 18:21-35

An audio version of this sermon is available here.

In our Gospel reading today, Peter asks Jesus how often he ought to forgive someone who wrongs him. How much forgiveness is enough? How big should our Christian forgiveness be?

It is a question that is especially poignant for us today, on Sunday September Eleventh, 9/11, the tenth anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks our country has ever known. On this day we look back on the shock, the horror, the anger, the grief we experienced ten years ago, when airplanes were used as bombs, and centers of finance and defense came under attack, and thousands of people were murdered in an act of undeclared, indiscriminate, and immoral war. On this day we reflect on everything that has happened in the ten years since those attacks: war on terror, homeland security, coalitions of the willing, attempts at saber-rattling and attempts at peacemaking, culture wars, atheist denunciations of all religion as inherently violent — a world perhaps more fragile, more fearful, more vulnerable than it’s ever been before. And on this day we ask about the role of forgiveness in all of this: How can we forgive those who did this? Should we forgive those who did this? Is forgiveness even the proper category to invoke when we’re talking about things like terrorism and security and international policy and people who have no apparent interest in living and letting live with us? On this day of all days, we hear Peter ask Jesus “How much forgiveness is enough?”, and the question goes right through our hearts.

And as we struggle with that question, and with Jesus’ answer to it, it is important that we keep in mind just what Jesus means by “forgiveness.” In Jesus’ teaching, forgiveness is something more than just saying “It’s okay” or “No harm done” when someone hurts you; that’s not forgiving, that’s just papering over the hurt, that’s just pretending things are alright without making them alright. In Jesus’ teaching, forgiveness is something more than waiting to see if the other person is willing to make up to you before you’ll be willing to make up with them; that’s not forgiving, that’s emotional hostage-taking. In Jesus’ teaching, forgiveness is nothing less than making a new beginning, so that right relationships of mutual well-being can flourish.

That’s what’s happening in the parable Jesus tells in answer to Peter’s question. There was a king, Jesus says, who had a slave, probably a high official in the king’s court, who had mismanaged the king’s accounts badly, very badly, to the point of losing ten thousand talents, which in Jesus’ time would be an unimaginable, astronomical amount of money. The debt threatens to destroy their relationship — literally, the king is planning to sell the slave, and his wife, and his children, and his possessions — and that will remove him from the royal court, that will end his relationships in the palace household, that will take away the only livelihood he’s ever known. Breaking relationship with the king means pretty much losing everything. So the slave pleads, and, even though they both know it’s impossible, the slave promises the king that over time he will pay back everything he owes. But the king has a better idea: he cancels the debt; he clears the books; he transfers money out of his own treasury to make up for what has been lost by the slave’s mismanagement. In this parable the king acts in an extraordinary way to create a new beginning, to remove and clear away all the mistakes and the errors and the ill-will from the past, and to create anew the conditions required to build up a right relationship of mutual well-being between them. As Jesus teaches it, that is the real meaning of forgiveness.

And new beginnings for right relationship is also supposed to be the meaning of being forgiven. When the forgiven slave goes out and meets a fellow slave who owes him a hundred denarii (chicken feed compared to the slave’s own former debt) he goes ballistic: he grabs him by the throat and demands payment and throws him in prison. What he should have done, Jesus makes clear by implication, is to share his new beginning with his fellow slave, to cancel the debt and clear away the old ill-will, to create anew the conditions for right relationship between them. He should have acted from his own new beginning to create new mutual well-being for them both. The fact that he did not do this shows that he has not really understood what the king has done for him, he has not really accepted his own forgiveness, he has not really taken on the work of living into his new beginning. The king ends up reinstating the debt and demanding it be paid, because the slave never really let go of it in the first place. Forgiving and being forgiven both depend on making a new beginning.

And perhaps that’s the important part for us to hear on the anniversary of 9/11. How can we forgive? What does forgiveness even mean in the aftermath of terrorist attack? It means working to make a new beginning. It means not getting stuck in the loss and the anger and the ill-will of the past, -- not ignoring them, but not getting stuck in them -- but clearing the way so we can move forward. It means reaching into our own resources, our own courage and goodwill and creativity, to begin again where things have been taken from us, to start anew where there has been loss. In means working seriously, and intentionally, and prudently, and generously, to create the conditions required for right relationships of mutual well-being wherever we can reach: in our homes, in our communities, in our nation, in our world; in our finances, in our policies, in our military actions, in our environment; with our allies, with our enemies, with those who are strangers to us, with those who believe differently from us, with those who wish us well, and with those who wish us harm. It means refusing to be terrorized, refusing to give in to fear, no matter what happens, because we know that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, and perfect love casts out all fear. For us, on this tenth anniversary of 9/11, forgiveness means committing ourselves anew to God’s work of making new beginnings in our world.

Peter asked Jesus how much forgiveness is enough; and Jesus answered that forgiveness is not a question of enough, forgiveness is not measured by amounts, forgiveness is opening ourselves to be channels of the creatively transforming grace of God. Let it be our prayer today that we may be channels for God’s creative transformation on this anniversary and always.

Amen.

Ceremonies of Identity

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on Exodus 12:1-14
An audio version of this sermon is available here

Sometimes you see something in a scripture story that you’ve never seen before, something that’s been there all along but you’ve never noticed, and it changes the whole way you understand that story. That kind of interpretive discovery can be a great gift from God.

That’s what happened to me as I was looking over our first reading today, the Exodus account of the institution of the Passover meal. This is one of those stories I’ve read dozens of times — even preached on a few times. It is part of our lectionary for Maundy Thursday, so every year during Holy Week I’ve heard and reflected on it again. I thought I knew it pretty well. But in looking over it this time, it occurred to me that this story tells of the first time the people of Israel ever had a ritual, a sacrifice, a ceremonial meal, that they all had in in common, that they all did at the same time and in the same way and for the same reason. To be sure, there are rituals and ceremonies in the scripture stories before this. Noah made a sacrifice to God after the flood. Abraham built altars at places where he had significant encounters with God, and he offered sacrifices on them. Jacob set up a pillar and ceremonially anointed it with oil where God appeared to him at Bethel. There are plenty of rituals in the scriptures before this. But all of those were personal rituals, household ceremonies, sacrifices that marked important moments in the lives of individuals or families, but didn’t really reach any farther than that. The institution of the Passover meal is the first time in the story of the people of Israel that they have a specific ritual, a shared ceremony, that reaches beyond the individual, the household, the clan, the tribe, to unite the whole people in one identity as the people of God.

And that’s important, because shared ceremony is one of the strongest ways to bring people together and give them a shared community. Think about it: before this, what did the people of Israel really have to hold them together? They had stories they could tell, stories of Abraham and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel and Leah and Bilhah and Zilpah, and Joseph and his brothers, the twelve sons of Israel. But all of those stories were generations old by the time of Moses; they were good stories, but they didn’t give the people much of a sense of what they could do together to be a people. By the time the people had multiplied in Egypt, as we heard in our First Testament reading a couple of weeks ago, I’m sure their sense of tribal bonding from ancient parents had become somewhat attenuated, and the only shared reality they felt was the reality of brutal oppression and hard labor. In fact, some historians suggest that the Hebrew people enslaved in Egypt did not in fact have a common ancestral background at all — that some had stories of their ancestor Abraham, and others had stories of their ancestor Isaac, and still others had stories of their ancestor Jacob, and it was only later editing that put those stories together and made them successive generations — but in Egypt all they really had in common was that they were slaves and they wanted to be free. Some historians argue that this ragtag bunch of West Semitic slaves wasn’t really a people at all, until God acted to make them a people.

However that may be, whether the people really were twelve tribes descended from common parents or whether they were historically distinct ethnic groups, the point is that by the time of Moses the only thing they had in common was being oppressed, the only thing they had in common was their suffering. But God acted to change that. God acted to liberate them. And the first step in that liberation was when God gave the people a new way to think about themselves, a new way of knowing themselves as the people God saves, a new identity, not as slaves, but as God’s own. And the core of that new identity is that they are the people who do the Passover.

Think for a moment about what the Passover ceremony says about the people who do it. They are to celebrate the ceremony in the first month of the year, at the beginning of the calendar — which says that this ceremony is for them a new beginning of time, the beginning of a new time in a new life with God. They are to eat the Passover with their sandals on and their walking sticks in hand, dressed for the road, ready to go at a moment’s notice — which says that they are a people who pay attention to God’s call and will follow God’s lead. They are to take the blood of the Passover lamb and put in over the doors of their houses as a sign — which says that they are a people God saves from death and rescues from destruction. The Passover ceremony unites the people in a ritual way they’ve never been united before; and it tells them something about themselves, about who they are as God’s people, and what that means; and it calls them forward into a new life of freedom and covenant and living God’s mission in the world.

And if we think of the Passover that way, what can it tell us about our Eucharist? Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us that Jesus began the Eucharist at a Passover Seder, so of course there is that very deep connection. But beyond just that historical connection, I think these two ceremonial meals do much the same things for us who celebrate them. As the Passover did for the Israelites, so our Eucharist brings us together and unites us in ritual reality, and it tells us something important about who we are as God’s people, and it calls us forward into freedom and covenant and living Christ’s mission in the world. We celebrate our Eucharist on the first day of the week — which says that this great thanksgiving is the beginning, the origin, the reference-point of all our works and days in Christ. We recognize in this ritual meal the Body of Christ, the substantial presence of Jesus with us, and the Blood of Christ, the essential power of Jesus’ life in us — which says that we are people saved from death and empowered to love as Jesus loves and be wise as Jesus is wise and live as Jesus lives. We receive this bread and wine as food for the journey — which says that we know ourselves to be called and sent to bring Christ’s love to all the world. Our Eucharist ceremony, like the Passover in Exodus, is the sign of God’s call to us to be a new people living a new life.

Sometimes you look at something familiar and discover in it something new. May this familiar Eucharist ceremony be a new discovery for us this day — may it be a new gift of God’s saving and creating grace for us all. Amen.