Sermon Proper 25 A

Proper 25 A

Transcribed from a sermon given at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

October 23, 2011

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

Matthew 22: 34-46

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all you mind, with all your strength - with all your whatever. And love you neighbor as yourself. Even though it is translated different ways we’ve heard it so many times. It is the essence. It is simple. It is easy to remember. It is a wonderful little sound bite.

It’s really hard to remember the hundreds, thousands, of rules that the Pharisees tried to follow. Even the Ten Commandments can get intimidating. Do you 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 does it mean to love? How do you love someone? What does it look like when you love God? And 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 that their people love them; well you can be made to say I love you but nobody can force you to actually love. In fact commanding someone to love you is the best way to get them to not love you. So how can there be a commandment to love God? What does love look like in the every day?

And then the other 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 said to my Lord? Why is it right there, after the great commandment? So there are lots of questions. Something that seems so simple ends up looking a bit more complicated.

This particular question that Jesus asked the Pharisees is using the way the Pharisees thought and turning it on them. They went through scripture and took what they wanted 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 we heard about Moses, who was a friend to God and could do marvelous and amazing things and fully human. Yet Jesus was talking in ways that didn’t quite fit with that. Which disturbed the Pharisees. So he says to them, well look back at your own scriptures. One of the passages hat is seen as predicting the coming of the Messiah was this particular passage from Psalms. The understanding then was 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 then there was no disagreement about who wrote them - David wrote them all. So how could David be referring to the messiah as his lord if the messiah was to be his son? Remember that the prediction is 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 you imagined. Maybe the messiah is more than you ever dreamed - not what you thought.

For us the important issue is how do we come to love. If you have ever met someone who had no love as a child you realize that as an adult they are a very damaged human being because 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. It’s almost like a virus, if you get around it and you catch it then 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 is 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 in whom we live and move and have our being. For some of us it is easier to 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 be open to that love.

But what does it look like. What is every day 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 you were feeling that deepest kind of love, when you went to grocery story the one you love was with you, even if they weren’t physically there because as you walk down the aisle you 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 go “Oh, there’s the kind of cereal he loves the most. Well, that’s not good for him but I’m going to get the healthy one he likes the most.” Because love is not always doing what the person wants, but what is best for them. But 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 recently. She had a difficult patch in her marriage including a short period of separation. After working hard on their issues when they got back together the marriage was better then it ever was before. She told me that it was interesting that before the separation when it came time for her husband’s birthday or Christmas she couldn’t figure out what to get him. But after they got back together when it was Christmas time she wanted to buy him six or seven different things. She just spontaneously wanted to do things for him.

 You know the difference when you go Christmas shopping and you have to buy things because you ought to, say for aunt so and so. You can’t figure out what you are going to get her this year. Compare this to when it is not even any special day and you go “Oh, this person would love that. I’m going to pick it up and give it to them.”

When we are feeling 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. And 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. And the only way we can really give to God is giving to other people. So we spontaneously want to give not just things, but of ourselves. We want to express our love. And the more we do that the more we feel God’s love, and the more we feel God’s love the more people around us feel the love that we have for them. It magnifies itself.

So we have this wonderful, succinct summary of all the Law and the Prophets - all that a Christian really needs to know. 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 24 A - Sermon

Taxes? What are we to do about taxes? This is not a new question for 2000 years ago Jesus was asked about whether it was religiously lawful to pay taxes. Jesus' brilliant answer still resonates with truth and wisdom today.

Proper 24 A

Transcribed from a sermon given

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

October 16, 2011

Matthew 22:15-22

Exodus 33:12-23

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

It’s interesting to see that questions about paying taxes are nothing new. Two thousand years ago they were debating about 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 then they would take the people into exile and 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. They would build aqueducts to bring in water. If you visit Israel today you can still see aqueducts from Roman times. And they would fix it up so that people could make money and the economy could thrive so that the wealth could be heavily taxed and sent back to Rome.

The taxes were not being paid to a government that was there to care for the people of Judea. The tax was going to Rome, to increase their wealth, to pay for their soldiers, to pay for the people who would harass them without any reason - the ones who had complete and total power over them. So it is understandable that 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 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. The temple tax was that every male every year had to give a certain amount for 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. Now that made the priests and Herodians, who were the ones who were the puppet government for Rome, a part of sending this money off to Rome. It was a very complicated situation.

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, how in the early Christian times when the Christians refused to worship the emperor they were put to death. That was 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 today, like in North Korea, where whoever happens to be in charge of North Korea 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 don’t support any other god?

Now this was a trick question of course, because if Jesus said, “Pay the tax,” Then the people who don’t want to have to pay the tax would be upset. And people could say that Jesus is saying that 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 the people to not follow the Roman law. It was a no win situation. The reason that this is such a memorable response from Jesus, and it got into the Gospels, is because what he did was he took this impossible question and he 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 Roman coins, and what they are is a piece of metal that has been stamped with the picture of the emperor on it. So he took the coin and said, “Whose picture is this?” They said, “The emperor’s.“ Well there is a problem there, because these Pharisees who handed him the coin are carrying around a picture of an idol. According to the Mosaic Law one is not supposed to make any kind of idol - there are to be 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 is of no of real value. That’s not a deep and true value.

Of course the beauty of this answer is he took it to another level. He made it about what is our duty. You see he is saying that we need to think about what is the important thing. Rome, the Emperor, represents all those things that are contrary to God - all those idols in our lives - all those things that we give our love and attention to instead of God.

We heard God beautifully described in the Old Testament reading today. Moses wants to see God face to face and God says, “You can’t see my face. I’m not a face you can see.” Then God walks by and Moses sees His back. Isn’t that the way it is sometimes - we don’t see God working in our lives until afterwards. We go “Wow, God was in that!” We see the back, after God has walked by. God is too great and too magnificent to be put on a coin or to be made a picture of, or to be represented by a thing that is worshiped. Our God is the God of the whole universe - the creator of everything, everywhere. God is a living god. As Paul said in his letter to the Thessalonians, “You’ve given up worshiping dead idols  and are instead worshiping the living God.”

Now this living God, 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 does not 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 Godself is love, is faithfulness, is commitment, is relationship. Because we give that out of our free will. And out of our free will we choose whether to follow God, to do what we can for this God that loves us, or to put our energies and our faithfulness, and our love into something that is dead. Caesar claimed to be a god but he’s dead. So the choice is do we put or energies into that which is dead or to that which is the living God.

Certainly when he says give to the emperor what is the emperor’s he’s saying yes we need to take care of the things of the world. Yes you need to go work. You need to take care of your family, 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’s a great course and helped me to 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. What is it in your life that has become an idol, that you can’t laugh about? Is it your work? Is it respect? Is it power? Is it a 401K? Is it your retirement? Is it a 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 what is God’s he meant that at every point in our lives, that 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 to give our energy and our commitment and our time to idols, to death, to that which is not life enhancing.

There is an ancient spiritual practice of every night before you go to bed you reflect on your day. What did you do during the day that was life affirming, was of God, and what did you do that was life denying, that was not of God? You are 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

Proper 23A

Transcribed from a

Sermon given by

Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

October 9, 2011

Philippians 4:1-9

Matthew 22:1-14

Rejoice in the Lord always! Again I say rejoice! This is one of the most wonderful things, I think, that 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 was inviting all of his readers to live a life of celebration, knowing the joy of the relationship with God, knowing 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 - as a wedding. The imagery of wedding is 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. It is a celebration of the whole community. It is a welcoming of everyone.

We know that, but we don’t do wedding banquets the way they did it 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. This was a week long, at least days long, sometimes week long feast. 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, who did the best they could, to share what you had with others. It was a feasting and sharing. It was a bringing together of the community, of the whole clan. In fact it was the bringing together of two clans, because often it was a matter of the husband and wife representing two different clans coming together to make one.

This was especially true if it was the wedding of the child of the leader of the clan. Which is what this king probably was. This doesn’t sound like a high king in charge of a whole area like David or Solomon. Jesus is probably referring to a king over a couple of cities or a clan, or an area. You have got to remember that this is a tribal area. It still is a tribal area and sometimes when we see what is going on in the news it is hard for us to wrap our minds around that because we don’t live as tribally. But the relationships and the interweavings based on blood relationships was very important then. So, if a leader of an area, let’s say a tribal leader, has a son getting married this was often used to cement relationships or to make a treaty. The son might be marrying the daughter of another tribal leader and the two tribes would become one, would have a relationship. If you remember studying 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, it’s 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 be reconciled with people you may not have talked to. Maybe many of us have been to a wedding where there was some cousin you hadn’t seen for a long time and you weren’t too sure whether you wanted to see them, but you worked things out. Well if you have several days of eating and drinking there’s a good chance you are going to find an opportunity 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. So in this story the first character we have is the king. Now I’m going to ask you to think about how you might be that character and I’ll sort of reflect on my thoughts.

So the first one is the king. I have had two children get married, so 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. And sometimes, if it is a small wedding, you only have a certain number of invitations and you spend a great deal of time trying to decide who to invite. So coming from the parent’s perspective it is  a very special thing to invite someone to come to your child’s wedding. And you are so happy when people say yes. And you are disappointed when they say “no.” Now sometimes they have a good reason for not being able to be there and you understand that, but there is still a feeling of disappointment. But 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 kind of severed. 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 sending his servants to go invite these people it was an honor, it was something special. Please come. Join in the celebration.

Well the next characters to consider are the first two people invited. It turns out that they are too busy. One has to go to his 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 lives been invited to something that had to do with relationship. Been invited to deepen a relationship with someone and have decided that we are too busy - that we just don’t have enough time to spend to go and be with this person. We’ve all had to make those choices. Sometimes it’s 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’s like. And we also know what it is like in terms of deciding about our relationship with God. Do we have enough time to go on retreat because there is all this business to do. The to do list is too long to take the evening off. We all have to make those decisions about relationships and our responsibilities. It is interesting, these first two are not particularly condemned. They have just chosen not to be in relationship with the king.

The next group of people that were 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 this city has been invited is that your son is marrying a daughter of that clan and you are inviting the whole city so you can establish a deeper relationship.  And they make light of you. They make light of you so much as to even kill the servants you send. Like 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. I don’t owe you anything.” So you can understand that the tribal leader sent his guys and we have to show this group that we are powerful, but it was their choice not to be in relationship.

And then the next thing that happens is the servants are told 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 would be thankful, 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, the other you used for special occasions. To show up at a wedding without a wedding garment on would be like having a wedding on Saturday afternoon and beforehand you changed the oil on your car and you got oil all over your hands. You have your overalls on and you haven’t brushed your hair and you show up.  What does that say about how you feel about the person who is putting on 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. If I got invited to that royal wedding you darn well know that I’d go out and buy something new - even if I had to go to a thrift shop to find it. And I might even get one of those silly hats. I wouldn’t show up in my jeans, or my short shorts. Or whatever it would be. (God help me if I showed up in short shorts.) But this guest chose not to take the wedding banquet seriously.

You see in the imagery in scripture the wedding banquet is not between two other people, the wedding is between God and the person who shows up. At the end of the parable it says many are called but few are chosen. I would put that a different way. Many are called, but few chose to be in relationship. Because 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.

And there is one more character or person in the parable that I haven’t mentioned. Anybody think of who it is? The servants. There’s a group of people. The Greek word is doulos  (δοῦλος) and doulos 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’ve given themselves up totally to the other person, which a slave would do. And what the servants do is they go out and they invite people.

I would say that here we are. All of you were invited to the wedding banquet and you’ve shown up. Showing up is a large part of it. How did you hear about it? And now that you’re 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 - of offering oneself totally to serve the other - to become servants of Christ. And what is it that servants do? They go out and they invite everybody to come to the wedding.

Amen.

Sermon for Proper 22 A - St. Francis

What follows is a transcription of a sermon I gave October 2 of 2011. We were honoring St. Francis that day and would be blessing animals immediately following the sermon. I always enjoyed sharing our worship with our animal friends. That Sunday I based the sermon on the lectionary readings for Proper 22 A and retold the parable of wicked tenants from a 21st century perspective.

Proper 22 A

Blessing of the Animals

Transcribed from a sermon given

October 2, 2011

Saint Barnabas Episcopal Church

The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight O Lord our strength and our redeemer.

Please be seated, or should I say “Sit!”

If you were reading along or singing the psalm with the choir you saw where I got that statement that I almost always use to begin my sermons. It is from that Psalm, number 19.

I would like to tell the parable that Jesus gave us today in the manner it might be told in the 21^st century. Let’s imagine that Bill Gates has discovered a new area that is very poor and a town that has absolutely nothing. So he goes there and he builds a factory. He puts in wells. He builds houses for the people who will work in the factory. He puts in a large garden so the people can be well fed. He 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 and sophisticated of the people and says; "Now you will be the managers and you will oversee what happens.” You are to send me a certain percentage of whatever you make so I can reinvest it other places, and you 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.

 Well, at first the people are so thankful to Mr. Gates for having done this and helping them out that when it comes time and they add up how much money they’ve 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. Well a few years down the road the managers realize that they haven’t heard back from Mr. Gates and there is no way for Mr. Gates to know how much they are making, so why are we sending him the full percentage? We can send him less and he would never know. So each year they send a little bit of a smaller percentage of what they have made, because after all they are enjoying how they live and they want to live better. Especially the managers who want to build some new houses that are a little bigger than the other houses and they need that extra money to take care of it. Well 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. Oh, well, if Mr. Gates has died then this is no longer his factory - it’s now ours. Right? So we don’t need to send him anything. We can just enjoy it, and the managers discover that they need more and more. They work harder than everybody else so they need to have more than everyone else. Some of the people are starting to be a little poor, but that’s their choice that they don’t have as much because they don’t work as hard.

Well after a couple of years Bill Gates say, “How come I haven’t gotten any money from that one town? It has been several years now. I’m going to send one of my chief aids to go and figure out what’s going on.” Well, this chief aid of Bill Gates is a little smarter than the ones in Jesus’ parable and he doesn’t go there and tell them who he is. He just tries to figure out what’s going on. Then he says that 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. Some of the people hear and some don’t.

Then that person goes back to Mr. Gates and says, “I’m really concerned. I’m hoping they will change their ways, but there is no guarantee.” Well a few more years go by and they are still not getting their share of the profits so finally Bill Gates sends his son. And his son goes. Well when they find out that it is Bill Gates son they say, “Ah, if Bill Gates is truly dead then if we kill the son it will be ours. We’ll inherit it.”

In this version of the story Bill Gates’ son doesn’t get killed but what do you think of those people? Those people who were given a great gift. They were given a gift of new life. They were given so much opportunity, and they forgot it was a gift. They forgot it didn’t belong to them. What would happen to such a people?

What would 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 means we would be able to create all this amazing technology, that was a gift from God. We didn’t will and decide that we would have all of that. It is all a gift.

Now we are celebrating St. Francis today, but I am using the readings that are normally used for this Sunday, not the readings that are for St. Francis, but they certainly fit with Francis.

Let’s begin with the Old Testament reading. It is always good to remember what those basic commandments are. And the very first one, the very first one is, “I am the Lord who brought you out of slavery in Egypt, you will have no other gods before me.” The very first commandment is a reminder that God gives us everything. Our freedom, our lives, all of it. And we are supposed to keep God as number 1. That’s the foundation. That’s the first commandment. No ifs, ands or buts. No I am number 1 except when there is a good football game on. Not I am number 1 but make as much money as you can. Not I am number 1 and if you make me number 1 then I will give you something. It is not a deal. It is not an exchange. I am number 1, period. End of that first commandment.

And when we make God number 1, when we appreciate and realize that God is the source of everything, all of our lives, how can we not live a life of thankfulness and praise. All the time. And that’s 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 of it. He wrote some of the words we have been singing today in some of the songs about praising God. One of the last things he wrote was a wonderful ode to God, a poem of praise, which is Hymn 406. So if you look in the blue hymnal for hymn 406 you will recognize 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.

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 this was written near the end of Francis’ life. The last few years of his life he was constantly in excruciating pain. His feet were in so much pain he couldn’t walk. So when he wrote this he was in great physical pain. And he was also in emotional and spiritual pain because the order that 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. And so 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 and being able to write such wonderful praise to God. That was St. Francis. That was St. Francis.

We bless animals around the time of St. Francis’ feast day because it is said that he loved animals. There is a story of him with a wolf and there are stories that 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 sometimes try 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 wonderful 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 Proper 21A

The readings for this week are all about community and relationship. The bottom line question is what does it mean to love one another.

Proper 21

Transcribed from a sermon given

September 25, 2011

Rev. Valerie A. Hart

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Arroyo Grande CA

Philippians 2:1-13

Exodus 17:1-7

Matthew 21:23-32

There’s an old story from India about two monks that went up into the Himalayas as hermits to find God and purify themselves. They found two caves that were next to each other and each one went into their cave, taking with them nothing but some straw for a bed. They didn’t see each other for many months as each one worked on their own meditation and their own purity. Of course when the winter came they couldn’t see each other. When spring came and with the spring the sunshine each of the monks took their pile of straw and put it out in the sun because after a winter in the cave it needed to be freshened up a bit. They saw each other there, and the older monk greeted the younger monk, “How are you?” Not too many words, but acknowledging him. The younger monk said, “It was a good winter, I have now conquered my anger.” The old monk said, “That’s wonderful. That’s fantastic, that you are now free from anger.” And then the older monk went over and walked over the straw of the younger monk. At which point the younger monk yelled, “How could you do that! Don’t do that to my straw!” And the older monk said, “Ah, I see that you have conquered your anger.

It is very easy to conquer one’s anger if you are living alone. However, if you have to interact with other human beings it is much more difficult. It is fine to think about one’s spiritual journey when you are alone, but when you are in community, when you are interacting with others, ah, that’s where the real growth happens. That’s when you are confronted by your own stuff. That’s when you begin to have the grist for the mill to smooth things out.

Today we have three readings about community. In the Old Testament we have those delightful people of God that God has freed them from slavery in Egypt. He has taken them away from all of the oppression of the Egyptians. He brings them to the edge of the Red Sea at which point they go, “What? You brought us out here to die? What are you going to do about it Moses?” To which Moses says, “It’s not me, it’s God and God will find away.” Then he parts the sea, and they go across the sea, that great miracle. They get on the other side of the sea and they are free, free to have a new life.

Last week, we heard about how after they had been wandering around for a while, suddenly they were hungry. “Back in Egypt we had plenty of food, and you brought us out here to starve,” they complain to Moses. Once again Moses says, “Don’t complain to me, it’s God who is doing this.” And God provides with them meat, of birds that drop from the sky, and manna they can collect from the ground. Once more God does great wonderful things for them.

A week later in our lectionary, they are someplace with no water and they are thirsty and once again they are complaining. Like most human beings they are looking for someone to blame. So they go to Moses, “It’s your fault, you are the one that brought us out of Egypt. It’s your fault that we are thirsty - do something about it.”

Isn’t it amazing how important it is to have someone to blame. If you have ever been home and your spouse is gone and your children are gone and you are there by yourself and you can’t find your keys you discover that you don’t have anybody to blame for the fact that they are missing. So they blame Moses and Moses says, “Don’t blame me. It’s God.” And of course once again God provides for them. They had forgotten, they had so quickly forgotten about God’s provision, about God’s love, about God’s caring for them.

In the Gospel reading we have a different kind of community. It’s a family, and here we have the father that says there is some work to be done. He goes to the first son and says, “Go do it” and the first son says, “I don’t have time. I’m sorry I can’t do it.” He goes to the second son who says, “Sure Dad, no problem.” If you have raised teenagers you have probably experienced this. You go to one and say, “Go clean your room.” “Dad, I can’t possibly clean my room today, I’ve got all this homework to do and then a friend is coming over and we’ve got this video game we have to play and I haven’t checked my Facebook page for days and….” And then you go to the second son, “Clean your room.” “Oh sure Dad, no problem.” Well the sure Dad no problem, whether working in the vineyard or cleaning their room, they are out there and they see their friends. “Oh, hi, let’s go get a cup of coffee. They go to Starbucks. The friend has a new video game. He goes over and to play the video game, by the time he gets home there is no time to clean his room. He meant to clean his room; there were just other more important things that came up. While the one who had said no goes into his room, sits down to do his homework, looks around and goes, “Yeah this room is kind of a mess, I guess I should pick it up.” And cleans it up.

And Jesus asks the question, “Which one was doing the will of the father?” And of course when Jesus talks about the Father he is talking about God. We’ve all had times in our lives when we have said we are going to do something and then for one reason or another we don’t do it. And we’ve all had times in our lives when we said no I don’t think I’m going to be able to do that and then we change our minds and we realize we really should. It is a very human situation. And what Jesus is saying is that when we are talking to God it is not about our words, and what we say, it is not about whether we can say it all correctly, it is about whether we do it. Or as one might say it is not about talking the talk, it’s about walking the walk. Of living it.

And then we have this wonderful passage about community from Paul in his second letter to the Philippians. If you read Paul’s letters you realize that he had a kind of consistent experience. He would go to some town, he would set up a church, he would then go on to another town and then he would hear about how the first church he had set up was quarreling and arguing or changing the theology or doing something inappropriate. And then he would write to them and say come on guys remember what I said to you - we all have to get along, etc. This particular letter to the Philippians was probably written while he was in jail. So imagine, he’s in jail and trying to encourage his flock. And the challenges that that church had are greater then even the churches today.

We’ve all had at one time or another an experience of a church that had some disagreement. Somewhere, at some time. Imagine the Philippians. Back then there is only one church in town, so if you disagree and you have a fight there is no other church to go to. If you don’t like your minister you can’t go to the other one. If you don’t like the music you can’t go and find a better musicians. You are stuck. If you are going to stay Christian you are stuck with this community. And this community is made up of people who would never encounter each other on a day-to-day basis. They didn’t shop in the same stores, they didn’t walk down the same streets, because you had people who were Jewish, and you had people who had been Pagans - worshippers of pagan gods. You had people who spoke Greek, and people who spoke Latin, and people who spoke Hebrew. You had people who were wealthy and people who were slaves. And you had men and you had women. None of these groups would normally interact with each other. Here they are put together into a community because they have all felt called by Christ. Here Paul is writing to them, and I can’t say it any better than he did. “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” In other word, please, if you care about me, if you care about Christ, if your life has been touched, get along, get along. He goes on to say, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” To me that’s what it means to love one another as Christ loved us.

I had a lot of time to think about love when I was asked to be the officiant at my son’s wedding. I wondered what I was going to say to my son and my daughter-in-law about love, about marriage? What little hopeful pearl of wisdom that they might remember could I say? As I reflected on in I concluded that love has to do with caring about the welfare of the other person.

We have a problem in English because we use the word love for so many different things. In Greek, which the New Testament was written in, there are four different words that are translated as love. But we only have one word for love and we use that same word to say I love my car, I love my spouse, I love my child, I love my dog, I love chocolate. We use the same word even thought they are very different meanings. I love chocolate but not the same way I love my children. And so it is a little hard for us sometimes to talk about love. The kind of love that a spouse has, the kind of love that a parent has, is a love in which you care about that other person’s welfare. That means that you desire for that person to be whole. You want that person to be physically whole, spiritually whole, emotionally whole. You want them to take their gifts and thrive. If you are a parent you know what it feels like when you see your child blossom, when all of a sudden you see them being generous. Or you see them discovering their gifts and finding a new thing that they can do that they are good at. You see the joy in their face. Nothing feels better than that. When you see someone you love growing into the fullness of who they can be as a human being. To me that is what love is about. It is wanting that for the other person.

So in a married couple it is a matter of wanting the partner to be whole. It doesn’t mean always giving them what they want, because sometimes giving them what they want is not good for them, but it means wanting them to be whole and to thrive. It means wanting to give up what you may want in order to have what that other one wants and needs, that will make them whole. And if in the couple both partners are that way then each one can be selfless because they know the other is not going to take advantage of their desire to give. It also means don’t let your partner be abusive or use you because it hurts the person who is the abuser as much as it does the person who is abused. It means that you set limits because that helps that person develop limits.

It is caring about the other. Or the way Paul puts it in regard to community, “Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.” That is a Christian loving community where each person focuses less on their own interests and more on the interests of others. And that is what, I believe, Jesus meant when he said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Love one another as I have loved you. How Christ loved us, loves us, is he wants each one of us to be whole. He wants each one of us to know love and to know God. He wants each one of us to thrive. He wants each one of us to have all our gifts be manifested. He wants each one of us to know how much we are loved. And the way he demonstrated that love was by his willingness to die on the cross. So when he was on the cross, even with the pain and the suffering and the humiliation, there was him a sense of joy because he knew that was the best way for all of us to come to know God’s love and to be the people he yearned for us to be. That was his gift to us. And he invites us to love one another as he has loved us.

Sermon Proper 20 A

When Jesus told the parable of the workers in which the workers hired late in the day were paid the same amount as those who had worked all day and am sure that his listeners had the same feeling that we have today - that isn't fair. When it comes to my relationship with God, I am thankful that it is not fair.

Proper 20 A

Matthew 20:1-16

9/19/99

The Rev. Valerie A. Hart

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church

It’s not Fair!

It’s Just Not Fair!

How many times have those of us who are parents heard that complaint?

It’s not fair, she got a bigger piece than I did!

It’s not fair, it’s my turn to sit in the front seat!

It’s not fair, you let him get away with everything!

It’s just not fair!

I work hard at my job, but that  young guy just got promoted!

It’s just not fair!

I’ve been volunteering with the PTA for years, but they elected someone else as president!

It’s just not fair!

My brother has a bigger house

My sister has smarter children

My cousin made a mint in the stock market

My uncle retired early

My nephew is already making more money than I am

My colleague went to Spain for vacation, while I just went to Reno

My neighbor’s dog comes when he calls while mine runs away

She has such wonderful curly hair while I’m stuck with the straight stuff

She has such beautiful straight hair and I just can’t do a thing with the frizzy mess

It’s just not fair!!!

None of us can claim to be immune from the disease of comparing ourselves with others. And, you’ll notice, we always seem to come out on the short side of the comparison (after all, if we compared ourselves with others and found we had more, we wouldn’t be being humble now would we?)

So we compare, and we feel pain, and we complain. We start it as soon as we can talk, and it continues until we either die or become enlightened. And people have been doing this throughout time, or at least back to when Jesus was alive, for clearly the story in today’s Gospel comes from observing behavior.

But making these kinds of comparisons is a disease - a dis ease - for it takes us away from ourselves, away from our relationship with God, and pulls us into a state of feeling that there is not enough. Instead of being thankful and joyful for what we have, we are unhappy and complaining about what we do not have.

So it is with the workers who started out in the early morning. They worked hard and got paid a fair wage - but, others who worked less got the same wage. And that’s not fair. We can all imagine how those first workers felt. We have all found ourselves complaining about what others got rather than appreciating what we have. Most of us easily identify with the early workers.

But today, let’s look at the story from the point of view of the workers hired on late in the day. Who were these people? Well, first of all, all the workers, whether hired early or late were day laborers, the not quite working poor. They were the ones who stand around the Wendy’s on Monument Blvd. in Concord, or out by the shed in the fields of Brentwood, waiting for someone to come by and hire them. They have no regular job. They have no guarantee of work, not benefits, no pension. These are the ones who get paid in cash at the end of the day with no questions asked. So the group is standing around early in the morning, waiting to see what work there is today.

Early in the day, the landowner comes by and chooses workers. He naturally chooses the young and healthy ones. Those he can be assured are hard workers and healthy enough to last through the heat of the day. Later at noon he comes by, and the best have already been hired, so he settles for those who may not have experience or can’t speak English, or are a little old or a little too young.

By three o’clock, most who haven’t been chosen have headed home, but a few souls, desperately in need of work, still hang out in hopes of some small job. These are not your prime workers, but the ones left over. From these the landowner takes all those who might be able to accomplish something in the few hours of light left.

When five o’clock comes, who is left standing there? The feeble, the injured, the ones who have no one to go home to, nothing better to do in life that stand around waiting for a job that never comes. All that’s left at five o’clock are the rejects. Imagine how they felt, when it was so late in the day that all hope of work had vanished, imagine how they felt when the landowner pulled up in a pickup and offered them a job? How do they feel as they jump in the back? They must assume that they will be paid hardly anything, yet they go in hopes of just pennies. They are willing to work, no matter what the job. They are just thankful to be chosen.

Max Lucado imagines the conversation of one of these workers on returning home. “I’d never seen this guy before. He just stopped, rolled down his window, and asked us if we wanted to work. It was already near quitting time, but he said he had some work that wouldn’t wait. I swear, Martha, I only worked one hour and he paid me for the full day.”

“No, I don’t know his name.”

“Of course, I’m gonna find out. Too good to be true, that guy.”

From the perspective of the last ones hired, it is too good to be true. Why did he pick those last ones? Clearly not because they were particularly strong, or able, or intelligent or experienced. They were the dregs, what was left over. Yet they were chosen.

Who are we in this story. Like I said, most of us identify with the ones chosen early in the day, but should we?

We have been chosen by God, not because of anything about us, not because we are particularly good, or brave, or honest , or strong, or noble. We have not been chosen because we have worked so hard. We are the ones who were standing around, and out of nowhere, due to no special gifts of ours, we were chosen by Christ. We are the ones standing around all day, with nothing to show for our time. Yet he picked us, you and I, just as God picked Jonah, who clearly was not gifted with either courage or compassion. Christ has tapped us on the shoulder and chosen us, late in the day.

Why did he pick us? Certainly not for our gifts, after all they came from God in the first place. Certainly not because we have been perfect, for none of us have been. Certainly not because we earned it, no one earns love. We were picked because he wanted to. Because he wanted us. He has grabbed us and brought us home. He has tapped us on the shoulder and said “I love you.” No matter how long we waited or how much time we wasted, we are His and he has a place for us. And no matter when we say yes, whether the first time we feel his call, or not until the last minute, late in the day, we are all offered the same great gift of love and everlasting life.

Those who were chosen last knew to be grateful. Let us always remember to be grateful for the incredible gifts we receive from God, and most of all for the freely given, unconditional love of Christ.

Remember - the last will be first and the first will be last. Let us pray to always be as thankful as one who has been chosen last and therefore knows, really knows, the infinite generosity of God.

Proper 19, sermon given on 9/11/11

Three years ago the tenth anniversary of nine eleven was on a Sunday. This is the sermon I gave that day. It focuses on the Gospel readings where Jesus tells Peter he must forgive not seven times, but seventy seven times.

Proper 19 A

September 11, 2011

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

The Rev. Valerie Hart

Exodus 14:19-31

Matthew 18:21-35

            Unlike some denominations, in the Episcopal Church the preacher does not get to choose the readings for any given day. So here we are on the tenth anniversary of September 11^th and we have the readings that are part of our regular three year lectionary. We hear about the great story of the Exodus and the people of Israel escaping from exile in Egypt. We have Paul talking about how we should not judge others who choose to live out their Christian life in a different way. And we have Jesus making it very clear that for Christians we are to forgive.

            During this past week as I thought about September 11^th and I thought about these three readings there were a lot ways to go in the sermon. Let me start with the first reading, with this great story of the Exodus. We all know it. Many of us may remember Charlton Heston standing with his rod and the sea just parting in front of him. It is the iconic story of the Jewish people. It is when God takes them out of slavery and brings them into freedom. We read it at the Easter vigil because it is pivotal in salvation history. But when I read it this week what struck me about it was not the Israelites getting across the water, but them turning around and seeing the Egyptians getting caught in the mud and great waves coming down over the chariots, the Egyptians and the horses.

            One of the ways that Jewish Rabbis work with scripture is that they’ll tell stories around it. There is a rabbinical tale that God decided to take a couple of days off and made an archangel in charge of the world. When he came back he saw everybody in heaven was rejoicing. He said,  “Why are you rejoicing?” They responded, “It’s wonderful, your people the Israelites are free from slavery.” Then God started to cry. They asked him, “Why are you crying?” and he said, “My children, the Egyptians, are dying.”

            We all know the story that you see in movies. It doesn’t matter whether it is a western, or its science fiction, or its James Bond. There are the good guys, and there are the bad guys, and at some point in time the bad guys get it. We all kind of cheer when the death star explodes and the hundreds or thousands of people on it are killed. And when James bond has done his damage and everything is blowing up all around, we cheer that the bad guys are all getting killed. It is part of our culture. It is part of what it means to be human. When the oppressors get their due, as we would say, there is something pleasing about it.

            But it looked different when I read that Exodus story this week right after reading the Gospel about where Jesus calls us to forgive, not once, not seven times, but seventy seven times. When Peter asks should I forgive seven times that, for him, was a large amount. The Jewish tradition at that point was you should forgive four times. So he said I’ll do it seven times. Also seven is a number that represents completeness. Jesus said “No, seventy seven times.” More than complete - infinite times.

            It is natural for human beings to want revenge, but not for Christians. It is normal in history, for over and over again you see it, that those who have been oppressed, when they get their freedom become oppressors. But not for Christians. It is normal when we are hurt to want to hurt back, but not for Christians. Human beings biologically, evolutionary wise, are not made for forgiveness. That’s not “natural”. You don’t see forgiveness in the natural world. Instead we are like children. If you look at a small children on the playground you’ll see that when a kid hits another, they get hit back. It’s just what we do. That’s what’s natural. But it’s not for Christians. We are biologically designed for the fight or flight response. That when we feel attacked or afraid our bodies have this whole complex thing that goes on where hormones are put out and the blood leaves the inner organs so it can be in the muscles so that we are strong in our arms if we want to fight and we have lots of energy in our legs if we need to run. And we are all set. There have been psychological studies where if you give this hormone to people and half have had that hormone and half haven’t, the ones who had that hormone, if somebody does some small thing to irritate them, get really angry because their body is ready to react. It is not a choice - our bodies do it. It’s natural to want revenge. But it is not Christian. It is not what Christ calls us to.

            When we are deeply hurt, deeply wounded, when someone we have trusted has betrayed us, when we have been abused, when we have been physically injured, when someone we love has been physically injured or killed, when a monstrous things happens and we are deeply, deeply wounded, it is more comfortable to be angry than to feel the pain of the lose and grief. You often see this in families.  When one member of the family dies, the rest are busy trying to decide whose fault was it? When my husband’s grandmother died and we were sitting around in the funeral home and going to lunch, the whole family was asking questions. Was it the doctor’s fault for not curing her from her cancer? Was it her daughter’s fault because she was living with her and she should have noticed and gotten her to the doctor sooner?” Was it the fault of some chemical; was it the fault of some company? Whose fault is it? The family wanted to be able to be angry because that is more comfortable than feeling the loss and the pain. When we can find someone to blame, when we can stay in our anger, we can be focused on doing something, we can go out there and see what we can do to try and make them hurt as much as we hurt. Anger is energizing. With anger you have something to do. When you are angry you feel power. But when you sit with the grief at the loss there is nothing to do. When you sit with the pain and the grief there is no power and energy there. You just have to be… in the pain. So in order to really forgive, this difficult, difficult and unnatural thing to do, we have to experience the pain. It is what Christians do,

            There is a story of two monks, an older monk and younger monk who were on a journey. At one point they got into a squabble about something insignificant. The younger monk got angry and slapped the older monk, and the older monk, pulled back. Then he wrote in the sand exactly what had been done to him. They walked on for a while. Later on the older monk fell in a hole and the younger monk risked his own life to get the older monk out and saved him. Then the older monk took a rock and engraved upon the rock what the young man had done. The young monk said how come when I hurt you, you wrote it in the sand, but when I helped you, you engraved it on a rock. And the older monk said, “Because the times you hurt me I want over time for it to just get blown away, but the times you help me I don’t want to ever forget.”

            Forgiveness is like that. It’s not something that we just will. It’s not something that we can do alone, especially for really significant pain. But it is something we open ourselves up to the possibility of by offering it to God and asking for God’s help, By asking God to help us in that most unnatural of things which is real forgiveness, that most difficult of things, which is to be with the pain and let it go.

            Nine eleven was a horrible experience for all of us. There was deep loss, deep pain. I am sure some of you, like me, have watched the things on TV reflecting on it. I have seen interviews with people who amazingly have taken great lose and turned it around so that it has empowered them to be instruments of positive things in the world. And I saw an interview with people who got hurt by the anger that was around after nine eleven - the judgments of people who are different than we are. I also saw interviews with people who are still struggling with the pain and the loss.             There is something in humanity that wants revenge and that day when Osama Ben Laden was killed I didn’t know how to feel. There was a sense of relief. And yet, I couldn’t celebrate the death of a human being. Somehow to see the pictures of people gathering at the white house to celebrate, that’s very human, but it’s not Christian. There are so many feelings and emotions that we struggle with, even after ten years, after something so significant and powerful. We each respond in our own way. We each find healing in our own way. And we each reach a sense of forgiveness and peace in our own way.

            So I would like to lead us in some prayers today. One of the prayers that was suggested by Bishop Mary is on page 815 in the red prayer book in your pew. It is prayer number 3, For the Human Family.

Please join me

Oh God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your son, look with compassion on the whole human family. Take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts, break down the walls that separate us, unite us in bonds of love and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth, that in your good time all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly thrown, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And I’d like to invite you to join me in the prayer attributed to St. Francis, which is on page 833.

Lord make us instruments of your peace where there is hatred let us sow love, where there is injury, pardon, where there is discord, union, where there is doubt, faith, where there despair, hope, where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.