Proper 25 A

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself. A simple, easy to remember sound bite. An easy commandment until you start thinking about what it means to love and how can one be commanded to love.

Proper 25 A

Transcribed from a sermon given

On October 23, 2011

By The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, with all your whatever. It’s said in different ways, but we have heard it so many times.

Love your neighbor as yourself. The essence. It’s simple. It’s easy to remember. It’s a wonderful little sound bite. It’s really hard to remember the hundreds or even thousands of rules that the Pharisees tried to follow. Even ten commandments can get intimidating. Remember all ten? But love God and love your neighbor that you can remember. That’s simple. It’s clear. It’s not confusing.

Until you start thinking about what it means to love. How do you love someone? What does it look like when you love God? What does love look like in everyday life?

 How in the world can you be commanded to love? You can be invited to love. But no one can command you to love. We know of the dictators in the world who demand their people love them. Well you can be forced to say I love you, but no one can force you to actually love. In fact, commanding someone to love you is the best way to get someone not to love you. So how can it be a commandment to love God?

Another question that comes up as you read this passage is why the writer of Matthew put Jesus asking about this obscure thing from scripture about David saying the Lord put my lord at my right hand? Why is it right there? After the great commandment? So lots of questions. Something that looks so simple ends up looking a little more complicated.

This particular question that Jesus asks the Pharisees is mirroring the way the Pharisees thought. They went through scripture and took quotes from scripture to try and explain things. One of the issues was what was the Messiah to be like? Now the Jews did not expect the Messiah to be divine. The Jews expected, and still expect, the Messiah to be a great human being. Like Moses who was a friend to God who could do marvelous and amazing things. But fully human.

Yet Jesus was talking in ways that didn’t quite fit with that, which disturbed the Pharisees. So he told them to look back at their own scriptures. One of the places that is seen as predicting the coming of the Messiah is this particular passage from the Psalms. The understand then was that the Psalms were written by David. Scholars now are pretty sure that David did not write most of the Psalms. Maybe he wrote a few, but most of them he didn’t. But in Jesus’ time there was no disagreement about who wrote them. Everyone agreed that David wrote them. So how could David be referring to the Messiah as his Lord, if the Messiah was to be his son?

 Remember the prediction was that the Messiah would be a descendant from David. So Jesus is bringing up this issue, this question, to leave it open that maybe the Messiah is more than they imagined. Maybe the Messiah is more than they ever dreamed. Not what they thought.

For us that is a very important issue. Let’s think about how we come to love? If you have ever met someone who had no love as a child, you realize that as an adult that person is a very damaged human being. We learn how to love by being loved. We respond to love with love.

It has been said that you don’t teach love, you don’t command love, you catch love. Its almost like a virus. You get around it, you catch it, it grows in you, and then you give it to others. But it is a good kind of virus. So if love is something that we catch from being loved, how are we to love God? By knowing that God loves us. That’s the power of the incarnation and the sacrifice of Christ.

Some of us have a difficult time feeling a love relationship with an abstract deity within which we live and move and have our being. For some of us it is easier the feel loved, and to love in return, when it has a human face, human flesh. So in order for us to obey the command to love God, we need to know that we are loved by God. It is God’s love that empowers us and strengthens us to be able to love in return and to be able to love others. To open to that love.

But what does it look like? What is everyday life like when you love someone? Most of us here, probably all of us here, have at some point felt deep love for someone — whether it was a spouse or a child or a friend. When we were feeling that deepest kind of love, when we go to the grocery store the beloved is in your presence, even if not physically, because as we walk up and down the aisles we might think, “Oh, she would love that.” Or,  “He loves doughnuts. I’m going to get the chocolate ones with the sprinkles which is what he likes the most.” Or for your children you may think, “Well there is the kind of cereal he loves the most, but that’s not good for him, but I’m going to get the healthy one that he loves the most.” Love is not always doing what the person wants, but what is best for them.

When you are feeling love, when you are loving, when you are in love, you naturally want to do things for the other person. I had an interesting conversation with a friend who had gone through a difficult patch in her marriage. There was a short period of separation and then they got back together and now the marriage is better than it ever was. She told me that before the separation, when it came time for a birthday or Christmas she couldn’t figure out what to get her husband. But now that they are back together, when it was Christmas time, she wants to buy him six or seven different things. She just spontaneously wants to do things for him.

You know the difference when you go Christmas shopping and you have to buy things because you ought to. like for aunt so-in-so when you struggle to figure out what to get her this year, versus when it is not even any special day, but you think that this person would love that and you pick it up and give it to them. When we are feeling in that love relationship we just want to give. It becomes natural to give. It becomes what our hearts and minds and souls want to do.

So when we are in a relationship of love with God, when we know God’s love for us and we open to that, we just want to give to God. The only way we can really give to God is by giving to other people. We spontaneously want to give; we want to express our love. The more we do that, the more we feel God’s love. The more we feel God’s love the more people around us feel the love that we have for them. It magnifies it.

So we have this wonderful, succinct summary of all the law and the prophets. All that a Christian really needs to know. Is to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your spirit, with all your strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

Proper 24A

When asked an impossible question about taxes, Jesus gave an answer that took our understanding of money and responsibility to another level.

Proper 24 A

Transcribed from a sermon given

On October 16 2011

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Matthew 22:15-22

Exodus 33:12-23

It’s interesting to see that issues about paying taxes are not a new concept. Two thousand years ago they were debating whether it was lawful to pay taxes.

Of course it was a little different back then. In fact, it was a lot different back then, because the Romans to whom the taxes were being paid were an occupying force. Now the Romans, unlike some of the earlier empires, were pretty smart in terms of economics. Other empires used to conquer a land and take their people into exile. Then they would burn and destroy everything. The Romans would conquer a land, put up a puppet king or head of some sort, and then build up the infrastructure. They would put in roads and build aqueducts (there are still aqueducts from Roman times in Israel now) to bring in water. They would fix it up so that people could make money, so that the economy could thrive and so that wealth could be heavily taxed and sent back to Rome.

The tax was not being paid to a government that was there to care for the people of Judea; the tax was going to Rome to pay for soldiers, to pay for Roman wealth, to pay for the people who would arrest them without any reason - the ones who had complete and total power over them. So it is understandable that the people did not like the idea of being taxed by Rome.

But there was an additional problem with the particular tax that was being considered here. There were lots of taxes sent to Rome, but for this particular one there was a question of whether it was lawful or not. It was a tax that was called the temple tax. And the temple tax was that every male every year had to give a certain amount to the temple in Jerusalem. It wasn’t optional, there was no sense of percentage giving or anything like that. It was a tax for every male. Some of it was used to keep the temple going, but most of it was given to Rome because Rome taxed the temple.

That made the priests and the Herodians who were the puppet government for Rome part of sending this money off to Rome. A very complicated situation. The question was, the problem was, that Caesar had made himself a god. He declared himself a god and declared that people had to worship him. You may have heard about this in early Christian history when the Christians refused to worship the emperor and therefore had to die. That is why the Christians were so persecuted. They wouldn’t burn incense to the emperor.

We get kind of a sense of this in some of the personality cults like in North Korea where whoever happens to be in charge becomes like a god and is worshipped. But Caesar went so far as to say he was a god. So, if you were paying money to the temple and some of that money was going to pay a “god” were you blaspheming? Were you going against the ten commandments that said you were not to support any other god?

Now this was a trick question because if Jesus said pay the tax then the people who don’t want to have to pay the tax would be upset and his critics could say Jesus is saying we should break the law of Moses. If he said don’t pay the tax they could go to the Romans and have him arrested for inciting people to not follow the law. It was a no win situation.

The reason that this is such a memorable response from Jesus and that it got into the Gospels is because he took this impossible question and took it to another level. He said, “Give me one of the coins that you use to pay this tax.” You may have seen pictures of romans coins. What they are is a piece of metal that has been stamped with the picture of the emperor on it.

 So Jesus took the coin and said, “Whose picture is this?”

They responded, “The emperors.”

Well there is a problem here, because these Pharisees who handed him the coin are carrying around a picture of an idol. You are not supposed to make any kind of idol. No graven images. So he caught them in their hypocrisy.

Then he said, “Give to the emperor what is the emperor’s and to God what is God’s.”

This is just money. This is just a piece of metal with a picture of somebody on it. You can give that to Rome. It’s not of real value. It has no a deep and true value.

It is a beautiful answer. I have to tell you, I wish there was some politician who would take all the debates about taxation and the budget and take it to a higher level that would kind of be like Jesus here, but I’m not holding my breath for that one.

Jesus took it to another level by asking what is our duty. You see, he is saying that we need to think about what is the important thing. Caesar, Rome, the emperor represents all those things that are contrary to God. All those idols in our lives, all those things to which we give our love and attention to.

Or is it to God who we heard so beautifully described in the old testament reading this morning. Moses wants to see God face to face and God responds you can’t see my face. I’m not a face that you can see. Then God walks by and he sees his back. Isn’t that the way it is sometimes. We don’t see God working in our lives until afterwards, and then we go “Wow, God was in that!” We see the back. God is too great and too magnificent to be put on a coin, or to made a picture of, or to become a thing that is worshiped.

Our God is the God of the whole universe, the creator of everything – everywhere. It is a living God as Paul said in his letter, “You’ve given up worshiping dead idols and instead are worshiping the living God.”

Now what are we to give this living God? God doesn’t need anything. God doesn’t need our money, and even though it is pledge season, God doesn’t really need our pledges. The church might, but God doesn’t. God doesn’t need animal sacrifices, God doesn’t need anything. God is God.

But there is one thing that God can’t just create by willing it. You see God is also described as love. And love needs to love and be in relationship. The only thing that we can give God that God can’t give God's self is love, faithfulness, commitment, relationship, because we give that out of our free will. Out of our free will we chose whether to follow God, to do what we can for this God that loves us, or we put our energies and our faithfulness and our love into something that is dead. Caesar claimed to be a god, but he is dead. So the choice is, do we put our energies into that which is dead or into that which is the living God?

Certainly we can give to the emperor what is the emperor’s. Jesus is saying yes we need to take care of the things of the world. Yes, you need to go work. You need to make sure you have enough to live. There are certain responsibilities, things you need to do. No problem with that. Of course we live in this world. We need to brush our teeth, we need to feed our bodies, we need to do various things that have to do with this world, and there is nothing wrong with that.

 The problem is when those things become an idol. I took a course in seminary called Bringing Biblical Humor to Life. It was a great course and helped me see the Bible in a whole new way. One of the things that the professor said was that an idol is something you can’t laugh about. Something that you take so seriously that there is no room for humor. Then he told us, for the last class we where each supposed to dress up as our favorite idol. I dressed up as a little girl with a friend dressed up as a priest who was being inappropriate because I can’t laugh at that. But in the class I managed to find some humor in it.

What is it in your life that has become an idol? Is it your work? Is it respect? Is it power? Is it a 401K? Is it your retirement? Is it your fishing boat? Is it the football team? What in your life takes away from your commitment to God? What sucks you in and pulls you away from life and from love?

When Jesus said render unto the emperor what is the emperor’s and to God was is God’s he meant that at every point of our lives, at every moment of our lives, we make a choice. We make a choice to give our energies and our faithfulness and our commitment to God, to life, to love, or we chose to give our energy and our commitment, our time, to idols, to death. To that which is not life enhancing.

There is an ancient spiritual practice of every night before going to bed to reflect upon your day. What did you do during the day that was life affirming, that was of God, and what did you do that was life denying, that was not of God? Not to judge them. Not to judge yourself. But just to notice and become aware and gradually become better at choosing life instead of death.

God instead of idols.

Proper 23 A

Rejoice always! Come to the wedding banquet! Invite others.

Proper 23 A

Transcribed from a sermon given

By Valerie Ann Hart

October 9, 2011

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Philippians 4:1-9

Matthew 22:1-14

Rejoice always, again I say rejoice. This is one of the most wonderful things that I think Paul wrote. Rejoice always! Always!

Paul was already at the wedding banquet. He knew that his relationship with Christ meant a joyous celebration, and he invited all of his readers to live a life of celebration knowing the joy of the relationship with God. To know that the kingdom had come near and was part of them. Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.

We are at the wedding banquet. The wedding banquet is an image used over and over again in scripture to describe the relationship between God and God’s people.

The imagery of wedding is so rich and full and complete. After all, what is a wedding but a celebration of a relationship. The celebration of a relationship of love and mutual commitment. A celebration of the whole community. It is a welcoming of everyone.

We don’t do wedding banquets the way they did back in Jesus’ time. They knew how to do a wedding banquet. A wedding banquet back then was not an afternoon affair where you had some cupcakes and tea. These lasted for days, sometimes over a week of feasting. They had meat and food and drink and song and celebration and dancing and everything joyous. It was a time when the whole community came together.

It served a number of purposes. One of the purposes for the wedding banquet had to do with feeding. People at that time, even the rich, did not have an overabundance of food. The poor lived on very little, and they didn’t get to have meat very often. So, when you had a wedding banquet it was a chance for the wealthy or even the not so wealthy, to share what they had with others. It was feasting and sharing and bringing together of the community, of the whole clan.

In fact, it was the bringing together of two clans because often it was the matter of the husband and wife representing two different clans coming together to make one. Especially if it was the wedding of the leader of the clan, which is what this king probably was. The king in this parable doesn’t sound like a high king in charge of a whole area, like David or Solomon. What Jesus is probably referring to is a king over a couple of cities, a clan, or an area. We need to remember that the Palestine of this time was a tribal area. It still is a tribal area. Sometimes when we see what is going on the news it is hard for us to wrap our minds around it because we don’t live as tribally. But the relationships and interweavings based on blood relationship was extremely important then. If a leader of an area, lets say a tribal leader’s son, is getting married often that was used to cement a relationship, to make a treaty. The son might be marrying the daughter of another tribal leader and then the two tribes would become one, would have a relationship. If you remember your European history, that’s what the kings in Europe did for many years.

So this wedding, this wedding that Jesus is talking about, is much more than just a celebration. It’s about relationship, its about bringing people together, bringing the whole clan together. It’s a time to see people you haven’t seen for a long time. It’s a time to reconcile with people you haven’t talked to.

Maybe you have been to a wedding where there was some cousin you hadn’t seen for a long time and you weren’t too sure you wanted to see him, but if you have several days of eating and drinking there is a good chance you are going to find a chance to make up. It’s about that relationship, that celebration, that joy.

One of the ways that scripture has been thought about, meditated upon, is by taking all the characters in the story and imagining yourself as each one of the characters. Now I’m going to ask you to think about how you might be each character and I’ll reflect upon my thoughts.

First there is the king. I have had two children get married. I know what it is like to send out those wedding invitations. You go through who do we invite and who do we not invite. Sometimes, if it is a small wedding, you only have a certain number of invitations as you try to decide who to invite. So, from the point of view of the parent it is a very special thing to invite someone to come to your child’s wedding. You are so happy when people say yes and you are disappointed when they so no. Now sometimes they have a good reason for not being able to be there, and you understand that, but there is still a disappointment. But then if there is a friend or a cousin that doesn’t come and doesn’t explain why, maybe doesn’t even respond to the RSVP, that relationship is weakened. You feel like that person doesn’t really care about you. Maybe you aren’t as close as you thought you were.

So for this king to send his servants to invite these people was an honor. It was something special. Please come. Join in the celebration.

The next ones to consider are the first two people invited. They are too busy. One has to go to her office the other has to go to his farm. They can’t come to the wedding. I think most of us have at least once in our life been invited to something that had to do with relationship. Even though we were in a good relationship with that person we decided that we were too busy. That we just don’t have enough time to go and be with this person. We have all had to make those choices. Sometimes its hard. Sometimes we really want to spend time with this friend or relative or child but other things are calling us and we feel torn. We know what that is like.

We also know what this is like in terms of our relationship with God. Do we have enough time to go on retreat, because there is all the business to do? My to-do list is too long to take the evening off for a special service. We are behind at work and don’t come to church on a Sunday morning. We all have to make those decisions about relationships and our responsibility.

It is interesting that these first two are not condemned. They have just chosen not to be in relationship with the king.

The next group of people that are invited are ones who get angry at the servants that are sent to them and they beat them up and they kill them. Now imagine that you are the head of the clan and you run a couple of cities and perhaps the reason people from a certain city have been invited is that your son is marrying a daughter in that clan and you are inviting the whole city so you can establish a deeper relationship. They make light of you. They make light of you so much that they even kill the servants you send. The are saying, “We don’t think you matter.” Can there be a more direct way of saying “You are irrelevant to me? You are weak. It doesn’t matter. We don’t owe you anything.” So you can understand that the tribal leader who sent his servants now has to show these people that he is powerful. But it was their choice not to be in relationship.

And then the next thing the servants are told is to go out and invite everyone, good and bad. Everyone. Everyone!

What a generous welcoming thing to do. To say, “I have all this feast, come and share it with me. I don’t care, I want a relationship.” That’s the action of someone who really wants relationship with everyone and everyone is invited. Imagine being invited and not expecting to be invited. It would be like a few months ago when there was that big royal wedding in England, one day going to your mailbox and having an invitation to the royal wedding. Wow!! I’m invited. It would be exciting, you’d be thankful. You’d be all set to go.

Which brings us to the next character, the one who showed up at the wedding without a wedding garment. Now a wedding garment back then was not something real fancy. A wedding garment was basically clean clothes. Generally, if you had two sets of clothes, one you used for work and the other you used for special events. To show up at a wedding without a wedding garment would be like going to a wedding on Saturday afternoon and beforehand changing the oil in your car. You now have oil all over your hands, you have overalls on and you haven’t brushed your hair yet you show up at the wedding. What does that say about how you feel about the person who is hosting the wedding? What does that say about how much you value the relationship? It’s obviously not terribly important to you. You didn’t even brush your hair. You didn’t even put on some clean clothes.

Now if I had been invited to that royal wedding you darn well know that I would have gone out and bought something new. I might have needed to go to the thrift shop to find it. And I might even have gotten one of those silly hats. I wouldn’t show up in my jeans or my short shorts, or whatever. God help me if I showed up in short shorts.

But this last one chose not to take the wedding banquet seriously. In the imagery of scripture, the wedding banquet is not between two people, the wedding is between God and the person who shows up.

At the end of the parable Jesus says that many are called but few are chosen. I would put that a different way. Many are called but few chose to be in relationship. You will notice in these stories, the ones who aren’t there all chose to not be in relationship with the king. There were good ones and there were bad ones who were there because they chose to come. It is the ones who chose not to be in relationship that are not at the wedding.

There is one more character or group of people in the parable that I haven’t mentioned. Anybody think of who it is? The servants. The Greek word is doulous. Doulous has often been translated as servant. In the New Revised Standard Version, it’s translated as slave, and that is probably a more accurate translation because what it means in Greek is someone who has given themselves totally to serve someone else. They have given themselves up totally to the other person. Which a slave would do.

What the servants do is they go out and they invite people. I would say that here we are, all of us were invited to the wedding banquet and we showed up. Showing up is a large part of being in relationship. And how did we hear? Someone invited us.

Now that you are part of the wedding banquet, now that you are able to rejoice and celebrate the great joy of your relationship with Christ, the next step is deepening that relationship. It is about offering oneself wholly to serve the other, to become servants of Christ. And what is it that the servants do? They go out and they invite everybody to come to the wedding.