Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
10.26.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 22:34-46
There’s a reason there are so many lawyers in America. No, it has very little to do with the fact that many parents view it as the only acceptable alternative after you don’t manage to make it into medical school.
There are so many lawyers because there are just so many laws.
Let’s take the United States Code as an example. I can’t claim to fully understand it, but here’s what little I managed to pluck off the internet this last week. Every law passed by Congress gets plugged into one of 50 “Titles,” which logically sort American laws into different categories. Those titles are divided into subtitles, which are divided into chapters, which are divided into subchapters, which are divided into parts, which are divided into sections.
As a Presbyterian, I find that all strangely exciting.
For example, Title 26 has to do with revenue and taxation, so if you had this deep and burning desire to know when you have to file a special return, you could look to Title 26, Subtitle F, Chapter 61, Subchapter A, Part I, Section 6001, which tells you everything you need to know. Or is that Section 6002? I always muddle those two.
How many laws are there? Well, Title 26...which is one of the 50 Titles...is about 7,500 pages long. Fortunately, it’s a page turner. When you get to Title 26, Subtitle V, Chapter 37, Subchapter B, Part I, Sec. 7042, you’re just not going to believe the plot twist it serves up. Man. I was shaking my head after that one. Never saw it coming. It seriously sets you up for the sequel in Title 27. Don’t worry. I won’t ruin the ending.
The sheer volume of American law is truly dizzying. Hundreds of thousands of pages of code are simply more than any one human being...or even a roomful of human beings...can come to terms with.
I know they say that ignorance of the law is no excuse, but you couldn’t be aware of the fullness of the laws that govern our country if you spent your entire lifetime studying them and every single neuron in your brain was dedicated to learning them, including the neurons that you currently use to figure out how to eat, breathe, and use most universal remotes. When regulations and requirements reach that level of complexity, it becomes harder and harder for us to know how we relate to them. It becomes harder for us to know how to apply them to our lives.
For the ancient Hebrews, the law was also a big deal, although it was considerably less complex. As the scholars of Torah figured it, there were 613 total laws. 248 of them were things you had to do, and 365 of them were things you were supposed to not do. Compared to the United States Code, this was a cakewalk.
Still, though, the complexities of Torah were such that they consumed the thoughts of those who took it seriously. In the time of Jesus, those folks were called the Pharisees, and today we hear about how one of them asks him a question. It’s a lawyer, but by “lawyer,” we need to understand that Matthew means someone who would be more like a bible scholar ...challenges Jesus to make a judgement call about the law. It’s an interesting question: “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?”
Jesus, of course, knows his stuff. He responds with a quotation from Deuteronomy 6:5...”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind.” It’s a good answer, as that verse is the second part of the Shema, the holiest prayer of the Jewish people. So...that’s the commandment, right?
Jesus doesn’t stop there, though. Sure, he’s given the guy his “greatest commandment.” But he’s not finished with his response. While this is the first and greatest commandment in his book, he feels compelled to take it a step further. He makes sure to add in a second commandment, which he pulls from another book of the Torah...the book of Leviticus. From Leviticus 19:18, he says: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Having presented his questioner with this reply, he makes it clear...both of these commandments seem to be part of one single law. When he declares that the two laws are similar, he’s not really setting one up as above the other. They are to be understood as somehow part of the same single unitary thing. It is on the combination of both of these that the entire law...meaning the law given to the Jewish people by God...finds its foundation.
Our lives are not simple things. We have to figure out how to make moral choices in countless different situations. How do we act in the workplace? How do we respond to those around us in school? How do we deal with our families, and our friends? How do we deal with that annoying neighbor who cranks his music up at 3 in the morning when we’ve got important things to do the next day?
If you’re living your life in accordance with the faith that Christ brought to us, the answer to that question does not lie in having memorized a whole slew of different laws, each one designed to deal with every single specialized circumstance. You don’t need to dig down to find exactly which chapter and subchapter and part and section speaks directly to where you find yourself at that very moment.
Those things are very useful for organizing a society, and for trying to make sure things go more-or-less smoothly as we human beings bump and jostle against one another in the world. But faith governs us very differently. Faith is not about nattering over each tiny detail. Faith is about purpose. Faith is about direction. Faith is the thing that gives life depth and meaning.
For that reason, followers of Jesus Christ have a single law that gives just that sense of purpose. It is a remarkably simple thing. It is a thing that most of us can grasp without having to spend our entire lives studying some highly complicated ethics. Yet if we look hard at how most Christians seem to live their lives, it is something that we seem to struggle to come to terms with. We’d almost rather lose ourselves in studying and legalistic dickering over tiny little details. We’d almost rather throw up our arms and declare that it’s just all too much for us to possibly understand.
When there are laws enough to fill a thousand books, it’s hard to grasp them all. But when there is just one law, it is harder for us still. How can we find a way to apply that law to everything we do? How is it even possible?
Christ wants all of us to spend the rest of our lives finding that out.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Republic and Responsibility
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
10.19.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 22:15-22
I enjoy blogging. I am, as many of you folks know, a fairly compulsive blogger, and it’s not for the fame and the glory. There are now over 100 million blogs in the world, and the way I figure it by my dismal technorati numbers, I’m probably number seventy-five million, four hundred and thirty seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty two. Not that I’m keeping track or anything.
Still and all, there are many good reasons to put myself out there.
First, I like to write. It’s good mental exercise. Keeping an online journal of my meditations and reflections on life helps me to explore ideas that are too random to make their way here on Sunday. This helps me avoid the pastoral temptation to just ramble on and on and on about everything I’ve thought about this week. That keeps most of my sermons under that magic twenty minute adult attention span mark, and for that, I’m sure you’re all truly grateful.
Second, I think that if pastors are going to study scripture and society and reflect on it as part of a daily discipline, they should do so publicly...so that everyone and anyone who has the inclination can see the results of those reflections. Pastors are supposed to be public thinkers. And, yes, it’s just a tiny drop in the great global slopbucket of blogorreah, but it’s still worth doing.
Third, and most important, it means that when I write, I’m going to be called on what I write. People who don’t agree and who stumble across my page are going to let me know about it. Sometimes, the folks who comment are just trolls, small hairy beings who live under bridges who couldn’t care less about getting into a real exchange. They just want to spell badly at you and snap angrily at your ankles. But other times, those disagreements develop into fascinating conversations about the tensions within our society. Even though the disagreement is intense, you find yourself getting to know that person. Even though the disagreement may seem irreconcilable, you find yourself liking and caring for the soul that hides behind their cartoonish avatar.
Over the last year or so, I’ve engaged in some intense but almost invariably civil disagreements with a deeply conservative young woman. She’s a navy officer, fervently Christian, and as sharp as a tack. While we’re on the opposite sides of the political spectrum, I respect her formidable intellect and her writing ability. Though I’m often frustrated at her inability to see the world as I do (which as we all know, is correct 142% of the time), I still appreciate her as a daughter of Eve. Though I wish she bore less anger in her heart, I know she’s a basically decent and honorable soul.
I keep track of her writings through my feed reader, and when I took a look at what she’d posted this week, I was compelled to challenge her.
She’s given up on the election this year. She’s convinced that neither major party candidate reflects her profound conservatism, and isn’t going to vote at all. Now you might think I’d be pleased at this. Y’all know where I stand politically, and might assume I would be pleased with this. Booyah! Another one bites the dust! But hearing her cast aside her vote in cynical resignation, I felt that I had to do a little witnessing. Why?
Because a significant majority of Americans do exactly the same thing. In this great democracy, most of our citizens have allowed cynicism or apathy to stand between them and fulfilling that basic duty at the polling booth. Some might say: why is that bad? Isn’t it our right to not vote if we so choose?
For a partial answer to that, let’s turn to today’s interesting little story from the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus is having another run-in with the Pharisees, who are trying to get him into trouble with the law. After buttering him up a little bit with flattery, they ask him a question that they think can have no correct answer. That question is simply this: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?
It was a very well conceived trap.
On the one hand, if you answered yes, it meant that you were willing to use Roman money on which was inscribed assertions of the emperor’s divinity. It meant that you were assenting to him as a god, and betraying the God of Israel. It also meant you were supporting the hated occupiers of the Holy Land. So you couldn’t answer yes, or you were a traitor to the Jewish people.
On the other hand, if you answered no, it meant that you were a dangerous revolutionary, a threat to the Empire. The Roman authorities didn’t look kindly on people who refused to pay their taxes. So you couldn’t answer no, or you were a threat to Rome.
Jesus was not so easily taken in. Given the choice of saying yes or now, he didn’t say either. He just told everyone to look at the coin, and see who was on it. It was the emperor, of course. So give him what belongs to him, and give God what belongs to God. It was a perfect answer, both yes and no, neither yes nor no. I’m not sure any modern day politicians could have done better. The trap his enemies had set for him snapped closed on empty air.
But as we hear his answer, we have to ask ourselves: what it is that we owe the emperor today? Both in this passage and in the Apostle Paul’s discussion of Christian citizenship in Romans 13, we know that we do have a duty to the government of the nations we inhabit. We don’t have an emperor, of course. We’re not an Empire or a Kingdom. Here in America, we’re a Republic. What do we owe, when the “emperor” is us? What do we owe to the emperor when we the people are the emperor? We don’t just owe just our taxes. All that an empire needs is for people to think of themselves primarily as taxpayers. But this is a democracy, and what a democracy needs from it’s citizens in order to thrive is participation.
Our duty in a democracy is to pay attention. It is to be engaged. When we fail to do that, we fail to give to Caesar what Christ told us is his due. We need to hear this passage in that way in our lives as citizens of our counties, of our states, of our nation.
But if we fuse that with what we owe Christ, it becomes a different thing. If we recognize that rendering unto God what is God’s means living a life of gracious forgiveness, showing lovingkindness and mercy and forbearance even to those who oppose us, we have to be citizens in a different way. We can stand firm on our political beliefs, but only if we are - first - standing firm on our faith.
It was that fundamental duty that I reaffirmed to my conservative blog-friend. No matter where we stand as Christians, no matter what our political orientation, we are each of us required to view our participation in the processes of the republic as a central and fundamental duty. It’s our task to remind each other of this, and support one another in this.
It’s what we owe.
We’re just a few short weeks away...so remember what it is you owe.
10.19.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 22:15-22
I enjoy blogging. I am, as many of you folks know, a fairly compulsive blogger, and it’s not for the fame and the glory. There are now over 100 million blogs in the world, and the way I figure it by my dismal technorati numbers, I’m probably number seventy-five million, four hundred and thirty seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty two. Not that I’m keeping track or anything.
Still and all, there are many good reasons to put myself out there.
First, I like to write. It’s good mental exercise. Keeping an online journal of my meditations and reflections on life helps me to explore ideas that are too random to make their way here on Sunday. This helps me avoid the pastoral temptation to just ramble on and on and on about everything I’ve thought about this week. That keeps most of my sermons under that magic twenty minute adult attention span mark, and for that, I’m sure you’re all truly grateful.
Second, I think that if pastors are going to study scripture and society and reflect on it as part of a daily discipline, they should do so publicly...so that everyone and anyone who has the inclination can see the results of those reflections. Pastors are supposed to be public thinkers. And, yes, it’s just a tiny drop in the great global slopbucket of blogorreah, but it’s still worth doing.
Third, and most important, it means that when I write, I’m going to be called on what I write. People who don’t agree and who stumble across my page are going to let me know about it. Sometimes, the folks who comment are just trolls, small hairy beings who live under bridges who couldn’t care less about getting into a real exchange. They just want to spell badly at you and snap angrily at your ankles. But other times, those disagreements develop into fascinating conversations about the tensions within our society. Even though the disagreement is intense, you find yourself getting to know that person. Even though the disagreement may seem irreconcilable, you find yourself liking and caring for the soul that hides behind their cartoonish avatar.
Over the last year or so, I’ve engaged in some intense but almost invariably civil disagreements with a deeply conservative young woman. She’s a navy officer, fervently Christian, and as sharp as a tack. While we’re on the opposite sides of the political spectrum, I respect her formidable intellect and her writing ability. Though I’m often frustrated at her inability to see the world as I do (which as we all know, is correct 142% of the time), I still appreciate her as a daughter of Eve. Though I wish she bore less anger in her heart, I know she’s a basically decent and honorable soul.
I keep track of her writings through my feed reader, and when I took a look at what she’d posted this week, I was compelled to challenge her.
She’s given up on the election this year. She’s convinced that neither major party candidate reflects her profound conservatism, and isn’t going to vote at all. Now you might think I’d be pleased at this. Y’all know where I stand politically, and might assume I would be pleased with this. Booyah! Another one bites the dust! But hearing her cast aside her vote in cynical resignation, I felt that I had to do a little witnessing. Why?
Because a significant majority of Americans do exactly the same thing. In this great democracy, most of our citizens have allowed cynicism or apathy to stand between them and fulfilling that basic duty at the polling booth. Some might say: why is that bad? Isn’t it our right to not vote if we so choose?
For a partial answer to that, let’s turn to today’s interesting little story from the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus is having another run-in with the Pharisees, who are trying to get him into trouble with the law. After buttering him up a little bit with flattery, they ask him a question that they think can have no correct answer. That question is simply this: Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?
It was a very well conceived trap.
On the one hand, if you answered yes, it meant that you were willing to use Roman money on which was inscribed assertions of the emperor’s divinity. It meant that you were assenting to him as a god, and betraying the God of Israel. It also meant you were supporting the hated occupiers of the Holy Land. So you couldn’t answer yes, or you were a traitor to the Jewish people.
On the other hand, if you answered no, it meant that you were a dangerous revolutionary, a threat to the Empire. The Roman authorities didn’t look kindly on people who refused to pay their taxes. So you couldn’t answer no, or you were a threat to Rome.
Jesus was not so easily taken in. Given the choice of saying yes or now, he didn’t say either. He just told everyone to look at the coin, and see who was on it. It was the emperor, of course. So give him what belongs to him, and give God what belongs to God. It was a perfect answer, both yes and no, neither yes nor no. I’m not sure any modern day politicians could have done better. The trap his enemies had set for him snapped closed on empty air.
But as we hear his answer, we have to ask ourselves: what it is that we owe the emperor today? Both in this passage and in the Apostle Paul’s discussion of Christian citizenship in Romans 13, we know that we do have a duty to the government of the nations we inhabit. We don’t have an emperor, of course. We’re not an Empire or a Kingdom. Here in America, we’re a Republic. What do we owe, when the “emperor” is us? What do we owe to the emperor when we the people are the emperor? We don’t just owe just our taxes. All that an empire needs is for people to think of themselves primarily as taxpayers. But this is a democracy, and what a democracy needs from it’s citizens in order to thrive is participation.
Our duty in a democracy is to pay attention. It is to be engaged. When we fail to do that, we fail to give to Caesar what Christ told us is his due. We need to hear this passage in that way in our lives as citizens of our counties, of our states, of our nation.
But if we fuse that with what we owe Christ, it becomes a different thing. If we recognize that rendering unto God what is God’s means living a life of gracious forgiveness, showing lovingkindness and mercy and forbearance even to those who oppose us, we have to be citizens in a different way. We can stand firm on our political beliefs, but only if we are - first - standing firm on our faith.
It was that fundamental duty that I reaffirmed to my conservative blog-friend. No matter where we stand as Christians, no matter what our political orientation, we are each of us required to view our participation in the processes of the republic as a central and fundamental duty. It’s our task to remind each other of this, and support one another in this.
It’s what we owe.
We’re just a few short weeks away...so remember what it is you owe.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Wild Vines
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda/United Korean Presbyterian Church
World Communion Sunday 2008; Rev. John An and Rev. David Williams
(preached in English and Korean)
Scripture Lesson: Isaiah 5:1-7
Sometimes a bright idea just doesn’t turn out the way you hoped.
Take, for example, the introduction of kudzu into the United States.
It’s a lovely flowering vine, brought to America in 1876.
It could be used as an ornamental plant.
The blossoms are rich and purple and vibrant.
And it’s really, really easy to grow.
Even I could probably grow it.
It has lush, broad leaves and deep taproots.
For that reason, Americans thought that it could prevent erosion.
So in the 1930s until the mid 1950s, farmers were encouraged to plant it.
Then they noticed something.
It really, really liked to grow.
And it grew a lot.
In it’s native Japan, where it was called kuzu, it had natural predators.
It was also limited by Japanese winters.
But in America’s South, growth conditions were perfect.
There was nothing to stop it.
At the height of a Virginia summer, kudzu vines grow a foot a day.
One.
Foot.
Every Day.
Kudzu now covers over seven million square acres of the South.
It strangles trees.
It smothers fields.
It covers crops.
It’ll overrun houses if you’ll let it.
Where once it was planted, now farmers fight against it.
They spray it and root it out.
It is the most invasive of the wild vines.
If you don’t fight it, starve it, or poison it
It will consume everything around it.
The prophet Isaiah also preached a great deal about wild vines.
Today, we heard his proclamation to the people of Judah.
Isaiah was preaching from Jerusalem, and to Jerusalem.
He had the ears of leaders.
He had the attention and respect of kings.
Many people in that position would have spoken easy platitudes.
They would have insured their position and spoken nothing hard.
But it was the time of the rise of Assyria.
Eight hundred years before Christ
Isaiah saw around him the flaws of his people.
He saw their complacence
He saw how the powerful in Jerusalem celebrated
Even though great threats faced them from the outside.
He saw how the wealthy in Jerusalem helped themselves to riches
Even when the poor scrabbled for a living.
He saw how everyone in Judah was utterly convinced that they could do no wrong.
They were God’s people!
God would protect them.
It didn’t matter how they lived.
It didn’t matter how they acted.
God would protect them.
In the face of that, Isaiah heard God’s challenge to the people and conveyed it.
Today’s passage expresses that challenge.
Isaiah spoke it in terms that all his listeners, rich and poor, would understand.
He spoke of a vineyard owned by a ruler.
That vineyard, though carefully prepared, was overrun with wild vines.
It yielded nothing of worth.
In the face of their injustice and unrighteousness,
Isaiah warned Judah of how land that wouldn’t yield would be treated.
That pleasant planting would be given over to ruin.
It would be an arid waste.
Because what growth there was was bitter and worthless and wild
The garden would be yielded to desolation.
It did not matter that the people were sure they were God’s people.
They had supplanted the harvest of righteousness
With a harvest of bloodshed.
They had supplanted a harvest of justice
With cries of despair and conflict.
Soon, with Assyria’s armies storming down from the north
Much of what Isaiah proclaimed would come to pass.
God would not stand by while his garden was overrun with wild vines.
He would tear down the walls that protected it.
He would make the garden a ruin.
As we each look to our own lives
We have to ask ourselves how deeply our hearts are overgrown.
We are all God’s gracious planting.
It is easy for us to personally assume, like those in Jerusalem, that God is always on our side.
We naturally believe that no matter what we do
God must be on our side.
But, like those whom Isaiah challenged, we have to always think:
Do our lives bear the fruit of God’s goodness?
Each and every one of us is called upon to show God’s grace in all we do.
How deeply do we show our Creator’s care to those around us?
How eagerly do we bear the fruit of righteousness?
How richly do we show God’s justice to the world?
How deeply do we manifest that highest fruit of the Holy Spirit
The self-sacrificing love that Christ showed to all?
Or are we overgrown?
Do our own desires tangle as heavy as kudzu on our souls?
Does our own pride
Pride in our position
Pride in our job
Pride in our spiritual superiority
Pride in our worldly wealth
Blind us to God’s love for others?
Does it try to strangle the good and gracious Gospel planting in us?
It is not the pride of others that should be our concern.
It is our own.
When we ask those questions, we must answer:
Of course it does.
None of us escape that temptation.
None of us.
Not a single person here today.
We all struggle with it.
So hear Isaiah, as Jerusalem heard and repented.
Hear that prophet’s word.
Bear good fruit, and be that pleasant planting.
World Communion Sunday 2008; Rev. John An and Rev. David Williams
(preached in English and Korean)
Scripture Lesson: Isaiah 5:1-7
Sometimes a bright idea just doesn’t turn out the way you hoped.
Take, for example, the introduction of kudzu into the United States.
It’s a lovely flowering vine, brought to America in 1876.
It could be used as an ornamental plant.
The blossoms are rich and purple and vibrant.
And it’s really, really easy to grow.
Even I could probably grow it.
It has lush, broad leaves and deep taproots.
For that reason, Americans thought that it could prevent erosion.
So in the 1930s until the mid 1950s, farmers were encouraged to plant it.
Then they noticed something.
It really, really liked to grow.
And it grew a lot.
In it’s native Japan, where it was called kuzu, it had natural predators.
It was also limited by Japanese winters.
But in America’s South, growth conditions were perfect.
There was nothing to stop it.
At the height of a Virginia summer, kudzu vines grow a foot a day.
One.
Foot.
Every Day.
Kudzu now covers over seven million square acres of the South.
It strangles trees.
It smothers fields.
It covers crops.
It’ll overrun houses if you’ll let it.
Where once it was planted, now farmers fight against it.
They spray it and root it out.
It is the most invasive of the wild vines.
If you don’t fight it, starve it, or poison it
It will consume everything around it.
The prophet Isaiah also preached a great deal about wild vines.
Today, we heard his proclamation to the people of Judah.
Isaiah was preaching from Jerusalem, and to Jerusalem.
He had the ears of leaders.
He had the attention and respect of kings.
Many people in that position would have spoken easy platitudes.
They would have insured their position and spoken nothing hard.
But it was the time of the rise of Assyria.
Eight hundred years before Christ
Isaiah saw around him the flaws of his people.
He saw their complacence
He saw how the powerful in Jerusalem celebrated
Even though great threats faced them from the outside.
He saw how the wealthy in Jerusalem helped themselves to riches
Even when the poor scrabbled for a living.
He saw how everyone in Judah was utterly convinced that they could do no wrong.
They were God’s people!
God would protect them.
It didn’t matter how they lived.
It didn’t matter how they acted.
God would protect them.
In the face of that, Isaiah heard God’s challenge to the people and conveyed it.
Today’s passage expresses that challenge.
Isaiah spoke it in terms that all his listeners, rich and poor, would understand.
He spoke of a vineyard owned by a ruler.
That vineyard, though carefully prepared, was overrun with wild vines.
It yielded nothing of worth.
In the face of their injustice and unrighteousness,
Isaiah warned Judah of how land that wouldn’t yield would be treated.
That pleasant planting would be given over to ruin.
It would be an arid waste.
Because what growth there was was bitter and worthless and wild
The garden would be yielded to desolation.
It did not matter that the people were sure they were God’s people.
They had supplanted the harvest of righteousness
With a harvest of bloodshed.
They had supplanted a harvest of justice
With cries of despair and conflict.
Soon, with Assyria’s armies storming down from the north
Much of what Isaiah proclaimed would come to pass.
God would not stand by while his garden was overrun with wild vines.
He would tear down the walls that protected it.
He would make the garden a ruin.
As we each look to our own lives
We have to ask ourselves how deeply our hearts are overgrown.
We are all God’s gracious planting.
It is easy for us to personally assume, like those in Jerusalem, that God is always on our side.
We naturally believe that no matter what we do
God must be on our side.
But, like those whom Isaiah challenged, we have to always think:
Do our lives bear the fruit of God’s goodness?
Each and every one of us is called upon to show God’s grace in all we do.
How deeply do we show our Creator’s care to those around us?
How eagerly do we bear the fruit of righteousness?
How richly do we show God’s justice to the world?
How deeply do we manifest that highest fruit of the Holy Spirit
The self-sacrificing love that Christ showed to all?
Or are we overgrown?
Do our own desires tangle as heavy as kudzu on our souls?
Does our own pride
Pride in our position
Pride in our job
Pride in our spiritual superiority
Pride in our worldly wealth
Blind us to God’s love for others?
Does it try to strangle the good and gracious Gospel planting in us?
It is not the pride of others that should be our concern.
It is our own.
When we ask those questions, we must answer:
Of course it does.
None of us escape that temptation.
None of us.
Not a single person here today.
We all struggle with it.
So hear Isaiah, as Jerusalem heard and repented.
Hear that prophet’s word.
Bear good fruit, and be that pleasant planting.
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