Proper 22A, with a mention of St. Francis

How would Jesus' parable of the vineyard be told today. I gave it a 21st century twist in this sermon I gave in 2011. We were also celebrating the feast of St. Francis that Sunday, so toward the end I relate it to Francis' love of animals and constant praise of God.

Proper 22 A

Transcribed from a sermon by

The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

October 2, 2011

I’d like to tell the parable that Jesus gave us today in the manor that it might be told in the 21^st century. Let’s image that Bill Gates has discovered an area that is very poor and a town that has absolutely nothing. He goes there and builds a factory, he drills wells, he builds houses for the people who will work in the factory, he plants a large garden so the people can be well fed, plants fruit trees for the future and sets everything up for this town to thrive. The people of the town are so thankful, so appreciative of what they have been given.

Then Mr. Gates picks out a few of the more intelligent or sophisticated of the people and tells them they will be the managers who will oversee what happens. They are to send him a certain percentage of whatever is make so he can reinvest it other places and they are to see to it that everyone has a good life. Then he goes off to another country in another part of the world to help them out.

At first the people are extremely thankful to Mr. Gates for having done this and helping them out, so when it comes time for them to add up how much money they made that year they have no trouble sending the percentage that was expected back to Mr. Gates. They have more than enough now, with enough food and housing and so forth.

A few years down the road the managers realize that they haven’t heard back from Mr. Gates. There is no way for Mr. Gates to know how much money they are making, so they begin to wonder why are we sending him his whole percentage. They can send him less and he would never know. So each year the managers send a little bit of a smaller percentage of what they have made. They take what they aren’t sending and keep it for themselves. The managers begin to enjoy a few extra privleges. They build new houses that are a little bigger than the other houses, and they feel they need even more extra money to take care of them.

This goes on for a few years and then comes the rumor. The rumor is, I think they read it on the internet, the rumor is that Mr. Gates has died. Well, they think, if Mr. Gates has died then this is no longer his factory. It’s ours, right, so we don’t need to send him anything. We can just enjoy it. And the mangers discover that they need more and more. They believe they work harder than everybody else so they need to have more than everybody else. Some of the people are starting to be a little poor, but that is their choice that they don’t have as much because they don’t work as hard.

Well after a few more years, Bill Gates says, “How come I haven’t gotten any money from that one town? It’s been several years now. I’m going to send one of my chief aids to go and figure out what is going on.”

Well this chief aid of Bill Gates is a little smarter than the one’s in Jesus’ parable and he goes there but doesn’t tell them who he is. He just tries to figure out what is going on. Then he says, “This isn’t right. This isn’t yours. This was given to you to use, to take care of. And you shouldn’t be treating some people as less than.” Now some of the people hear and try to work for change and some people don’t things to change. The representative goes back to Mr. Gates and says “I’m really concerned. I’m hoping they will change their ways, but there is no guarantee.”

A few more years go by and there Mr. Gates is still not getting his share of the profits, so finally he sends his son. When they find out it is Bill Gates’ son they think, “Well if Bill Gates is truly dead, and if we kill the son it will be ours. We’ll inherit it.”

What do you think of those people? Those people were given a great gift. They were given the gift of a new life. They were given such an opportunity but they forgot it was a gift. They forgot it didn’t belong to them.

What would happen to such a people? What will happen to us, because after all everything, everything we have, is a gift from God. The sunshine isn’t ours. The rain isn’t ours. The seeds that are planted and grow up to make food aren’t ours. Our bodies were created by God and are a gift from God. Our intellectual capacity is a gift from God. We didn’t make ourselves smart. We didn’t make ourselves talented. Our hands with these wonderful opposable thumbs which mean we are able to create all this amazing technology - are a gift from God. We didn’t will and decide that we would have all of that. It is all a gift.

The Old Testament reading today is the Ten Commandments. It is always good to remember what those basic commandments are. The very first one is “I am the Lord who brought you out of slavery in Egypt you will have no other God before me.” The very first commandment is a reminder that God gives us everything. Our freedom, our lives, all of it. We are supposed to keep God as number one. That’s the foundation. That’s the first commandment. No if ands or buts. No I am number one except when there is a good football game on. Not I am number one but make as much money as you can. Not I am number one and if you make me number one then I will give you something. It’s not a deal. It’s not an exchange. I am number one period, end of that first commandment.

And when we make God number one, when we appreciate and realize that God is the source of everything, how can we not live a life of thankfulness and praise? All the time. And that is St. Francis. St. Francis praised and loved God all the time. No matter what. He chose poverty because he knew that everything he had was God’s anyway and he gave away all. And he wrote some of the words we have been singing in some of the songs about praising God.

One of the last things he wrote was a wonderful ode to God, the poem of praise which is hymn 406. So if you look in the hymnal for hymn 406 you’ll recognize, I think, the words.

Most high omnipotent good Lord

To thee be ceaseless praise outpoured.

And blessing without measure.

From thee alone all creatures came

No one is worthy thee to name

My lord be praised by brother sun

Who through the skies his course doth run

And it goes on that everything in creation should praise God. It is a joyous hymn of praise, a poem of praise, and you would expect that someone who could write that sort of praise for God was probably feeling pretty good at the time. But the truth is that this was written near the end of Francis’ life. The last few years of his life he was in excruciating pain constantly. His feet were in so much pain he couldn’t walk, so when he wrote this he was in great physical pain. He was also in emotional and spiritual pain because the order that he had founded based on the idea that they would own nothing was now under the control of some of his followers and was starting to buy property, which he was against. He could see that his order, although still doing good work, was not living up to the deepest commitment that he had. The absolute poverty of Francis was too much for even the Franciscans. He was in anguish about that. Imagine being in constant pain and seeing your life work going in a different direction than you’d intended it  to go and being able to write such wonderful praise to God. That was St. Francis.

We bless animals around the time of St. Francis’ feasts day because it is said that he loved animals. There’s a story of him with a wolf and there are stories he so needed to preach the love of God that if there were no people around to hear it he would preach to the birds.

I have sometimes tried to imagine what Francis might have said to the birds and I imagine that Francis said to the birds, “You beautiful creatures of God. Creatures created by the loving God. Sing God’s praise all the time.”

And I imagine that if Francis was here today and saw the wonderful creatures we have here. These great dogs who are being so very, very good, he would say, “Animals, you are beloved creatures of God. Created to praise him. Praise and serve God with every breath, with every pant, with every bark. Sing God’s praise.”

And I think that Francis might say to us two legged creatures  who are gathered here today, “You wonderful creations of God, you blessed of God, know that God loves you and praise God with every breath.”

Amen.

Sermon 3 Lent B

Why did Jesus cause such a disturbance in the temple? What does it have to do with us and our relationship with God?

Sermon

Third Sunday in Lent B

John 2:13-22 and Exodus 20:1-17

March 26, 2000

Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Brentwood, CA

What was it that got Jesus so riled up? Why did he do this action of driving the sheep and the cattle out of the temple and pouring out the coins of the money changers? Certainly he knew how dangerous this was. Certainly he knew how upset the authorities would be. Yet he performed this dramatic action, at the Temple in Jerusalem, right before Passover, guaranteeing that many people would be around to see it. What could have driven him to such outlandish action?

This action of driving the salespeople our to the temple is one of a fairly small number of actions of Jesus that appears almost identically in all four Gospels. It is clear that it made a powerful impression on those who witnessed it. Most of the time when people talk about this action, they relate that Jesus was angry when he drove the people and animals out, but none of the four Gospels indicate his mental state at the time. None of them say that he was angry, they just record his action. None of them explain why he did it.

Jesus was acting much like the prophets who had come before him had acted. Often they would engage in some type of dramatic action to make their point. For example, Jeremiah is told (Jeremiah 13:1 - 10)

Thus said the LORD to me, “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth, and put it on your loins, but do not dip it in water.” So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the LORD and put it on my loins. And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, “Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.” So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me. And after many days the LORD said to me, “Go now to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. But now the loincloth was ruined; it was good for nothing.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: Thus says the LORD: Just so I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.

Other prophets went through extended public fasts; one even married a whore in order to make a point. The prophets knew that actions, dramatic actions, get peoples attention and are remembered much better than simply words.

So Jesus’ intense and dramatic action against the establish religion as expressed through the temple was very much in that prophetic tradition. He didn’t just get up and preach that he didn’t like what was happening in the temple, he dramatically and memorably showed his displeasure.

But what was it that he was displeased about? What was wrong with selling animals and changing money in the temple? After all, to worship people needed to have the proper animal to be sacrificed, and it was a service to the pilgrims who came to have the animals right there to purchase. And people had to pay the temple tax with the local currency. Since people came to Jerusalem from all over the world, of course people needed to exchange their money. It was just providing a convenience for the traveler, sort of like putting in an ATM machine in the lobby.

What was it then that disturbed Jesus enough to make such a scene? What was the point he was dramatically making? The Bible does not explain why he did this, but we can get some idea by looking at Jesus’ statements in other parts of the Gospels and looking at the prophetic tradition that Jesus’ actions were a part of.

Jesus’ primary concern was that people could have a direct and personal relationship with God. Remember what he said to the woman at the well. (John 4:21-24)

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus wanted people to worship in spirit and in truth, to open their hearts in simplicity and faith and relate directly to God. What was happening in the temple was very different. There a person would come and buy an animal appropriate to the situation, take it to the priest to be killed, and then have completed the worship. It was more a business transaction in which the person paid God with an animal sacrifice in exchange for forgiveness, or to fulfill a duty, than a relationship of sincerity and truth. It was not just the sellers of the animals that were the concern of Jesus, but the whole method of worship that had developed over generations at the temple. In this he was following the prophets’ footsteps, who had consistently railed against the establishment of the temple. For example, Jeremiah says (Jeremiah 7:21 - 23)

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.”

The temple, God’s house, the place that should have been a tool for helping people remember and grow closer to God through prayer, had become a marketplace. The temple and its methods had become an obstacle to the relationship with God, rather than facilitating it.

Jesus was bothered by anything, ANYTHING, that got in the way of the intimate and loving relationship with God. Right relationship with God does not take animal sacrifices, but a calm and peaceful and loving heart. The psalmist beautifully expresses it, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh, Lord my strength and my redeemer.” Words and meditations that are acceptable to God. That is the true worship, not what was going on in the temple at Jesus’ time.

In order for people to directly approach God, they had to get rid of the old system of sacrifices. Jesus had to drive out those things that got in the way.

I would ask you now, what in your life gets in the way of your relationship with God? What are the animal sacrifices and money changers in your life that Jesus would want to drive out of you so that your words and meditations may be acceptable to God?

If you need some hints, take a look at the Old Testament reading from Exodus, the Ten Commandments. Here we have delineated that which separates us from a trued, spirit filled and loving relationship with God.

1.     Have no other God before me. God comes first. If there is anything, ANYTHING, in your life more important than God, it is in the way of relating to God. Period.

2.     Don’t make idols. Don’t turn any thing into God. Don’t worship things. Is your car an idol? Or your boat? Are you more concerned with caring for them then caring for your soul? How much time you spend concerned with their upkeep verses your prayer life? Don’t turn anything into God.

3.     You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord you God. In ancient times, the names of the gods were used as words of power. They were used for magic, to try to manipulate the world. To use God’s name as a magic spell, in an attempt to manipulate things, to try to be in control, is clearly getting in the way of a right relationship with God. Today we are more likely to be tempted to use prayer in an attempt to manipulate the world in a magical way. The name of Jesus is powerful; we must not use it thoughtlessly.

4.     Remember the Sabbath. Take some time off. How can you possibly be in right relationship with God if you never take any time for that relationship? Can you set aside a regular time to pray, and read, and study?

5.     Honor your father and your mother. If we don’t have peace in our hearts with our parents our minds cannot be quiet and truly loving. I know this from years of therapy, both on myself and as a psychologist. Until we are at peace with our parents we are in inner struggle. Honoring does not necessarily mean obeying everything they say, but it does mean letting go of old hurts and resentments and treating them with respect.

6.     You shall not murder. If you have no respect for the life of God’s greatest creation, how can you be in right relationship with God?

7.     You shall not commit adultery. It is impossible, absolutely impossible, to be in an intimate relationship with two people at the same time and have any level of peace in your meditations or truth in your heart. Adultery leads to noise and confusion in the mind along with lying and deception.

8.     You shall not steal. Much like above, stealing leads to fear and deception, not love and truth.

9.     You shall not bear false witness. Here we are lying again. God is Truth, so to be in right relationship with God one must be in right relations with the truth.

10. You shall not covet. Coveting is such an archaic but powerful word. To covet something is more than just to want it, but to crave it, to be obsessed by the desire for it. To have your desire fill your mind and heart. To covet anything gets in the way of being grateful to God for the abundance that we have and focuses our minds not on God but on that which we long for.

What is there in your life that needs to be driven out? Can you invite Jesus to come into your life during this time of lent and take his whip of cords and drive from you whatever in you is an obstacle to a right and true and loving relationship with God? It will probably hurt, you will probably be surprised by what you find to be obstacles, but how else can we make ourselves a worthy temple for God’s spirit? Remember, we are God’s temple. Let us worship God in spirit and in truth.