Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
11.23.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 25:31-46
I’ve always loved bloopers.
When I was a kid, nothing struck me as funnier than watching someone make a highly entertaining error in judgment. I always thought that as I got older and more jaded I would stop finding America’s Funniest Videos quite as amusing. I’ve got a degree in Religious Studies from Mr. Jefferson’s University. I spent ten years working for the Aspen Institute, which is one of the most muckity muckity organizations in the Western Hemisphere, if it does say so itself. I graduated from theological seminary magna cum laude, and am now a Minister of Word and Sacrament with all of the rights and privileges thereunto bestowed.
But for some reason, watching a video of a guy knocking himself out while showing off with nunchucks still makes me laugh uncontrollably. Got a short video of someone dancing on top of an obviously too-flimsy table at a wedding? It works on me every single time. Show me a YouTube clip of that overeager amateur theater performer who’s great at belting out the mostly-on-key show tunes but not so good at knowing where the edge of the stage is? I’ll giggle till I just about pee. I just can’t help myself. About the giggling part, at least.
I know I shouldn’t. I’m not eight years old any more. I should be better than that, more mature, more dignified. But I’m not, and at the rate I’m going, I don’t think I ever will be. There is something about those essentially harmless errors that is fundamentally delightful. Why is that? I think we like those entertaining mistakes for a couple of reasons.
First, because they represent the unexpected. Human beings take joy in things that don’t turn out quite like we anticipate. If you know exactly how something will turn out, it doesn’t delight you, doesn’t stir you to rejoicing or infectious giggles. It’s what makes a good joke funny. The unanticipated, the wacky, and the absurd are the heart of comedy.
Second, because they show us how flawed we are. If we’re really getting it, we’re not laughing because we’re enjoying the embarrassment or discomfort of others. The Germans call that dark enjoyment shadenfreude, and while that might be a factor for some, it isn’t a factor for me. I’m not laughing because I enjoy the suffering of others. I’m laughing out of sympathy. I’m laughing because I’m feeling it myself. All of us have messed up. All of us have...with the best of intentions...managed to totally mess up on at least a dozen occasions, possibly even over the last week. For all of our efforts to be dignified and in control, we aren’t. We just aren’t...and often it shows. For all of our conviction that we know exactly what we’re doing, more often than not, we’re the one who loses control of those nunchucks or walks too close to the edge of that pool. Our judgment fails us, and unexpected hilarity ensues.
Yet for some reason, the deeply unexpected moment of judgment we hear from Matthew’s Gospel today doesn’t strike us as particularly funny. It isn’t funny at all, actually, even though it is one of the most intensely unanticipated moments in all of Scripture. Throughout the Gospels, in all of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, he speaks a great deal about the Kingdom of God. He tells us what it means to live and act according to that Kingdom. But in how many places does he teach about how the final determination? In how many places does he teach exactly what will happen on that final Day of Judgment?
Just one.
It’s right here, at the end of twenty-fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Unlike the stories that have come before, which told about the need to prepare for the coming kingdom, this story is not a parable. It is not a story told as a symbol. It is not a story that holds within it a message that you have to think about or puzzle over as you work your way through what it means. Though most of Christ’s storytelling was through parables, here he sets aside that way of teaching and does something completely different. Here, he tells it as it is. Or, rather, as it will be.
It’s a classical image, of the Son of Man on the throne of God, separating out all of the peoples of the world. It’s the big judgment call, the final moment when the lives of all of those who have lived are measured against the only standard that counts, the standard of Christ Jesus Himself, who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.
That should be a simple process. All the Son of Man needs to do is check whether you’re a member in good standing in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Right? But when all those nervous Methodists and Pentecostals get to the front of the line, we find that the nature of the judgment call being made is...well...surprising to them.
When the Son of Man congratulates the righteous for making the cut, he thanks them for showing him care, for feeding him and clothing him and visiting him when he was sick or imprisoned. And the righteous are...well...surprised. Um...when did I do that? I don’t remember doing that. I remember praying. I remember going to church...um...sometimes. I sorta got through reading the Bible, at least up until those long lists of names put me to sleep. But when did do any of those other things? When did I do any of those things for God?
The answer is a surprise. It’s unexpected. It’s unanticipated. You did those things for me when you did those things for the least of my brothers and sisters. For those who inadvertently made the right call, it’s a moment worth of joy and laughter. For those who didn’t...well...things aren’t so good.
But it’s that first group that really are the ones doing what we don’t expect. If you are a student of human nature, as we all become as the years go by, you quickly come to expect human beings to mess things up. Our basic instinct is to serve ourselves, is to seek our own interest, is to make sure that we come out on top and that the other guy is goin’ down. That’s human nature. It’s what we do.
Our judgment call, time after time, is in favor of ourselves and our buddies. It is in favor of our wealth and our pride and our comfort. It is what stirs wars. It is why human beings turn against each other and tear at each other, why they shout and scream and whisper, why they hate and hurt and lie. Honestly, it isn’t particularly delightful. It is certainly not unexpected.
What is unexpected is when we are surprised by our own grace, when we stumble into goodness, when we inadvertently fumble our own selfishness and surprise ourselves. By the standards of the world, it might seem like bad judgment. By the standards of the world, it’s like a mistake or an error, like the thing that wasn’t part of the plan and wasn’t supposed to happen.
[Where's the conclusion? Well...you had to be there.]
Sunday, November 23, 2008
12 Months To Live
Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda
11.16.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 25:14-30
It’s a scenario that has launched a thousand Hallmark Movies of the Week. The main character has been feeling a bit under the weather. They finally get themselves around to going to the doctor, who administers some tests. The tests come back...well...they come back indicating that they need to do more tests. So off our protagonist goes to a specialist, who administers the additional tests.
There’s much sitting around in an examination room. As time goes by, the character starts feeling more and more annoyed. What could possibly be taking so long? They’ve got other things to do that day. There’s the laundry that needs doing, and then there’s that new client they need to call and set up a meeting with. And today was the day that you’d scheduled in time to research a new data plan for your cellphone. I mean, c’mon! What’s taking so long! There’s important stuff that needs to get done!
It is at this moment that the doctor comes through the door, and they’ve got a grim look on their face. They look right at the Hallmark Movie of the Week main character, and, swallowing, say, “We’ve gotten back the test results. I’m afraid you have asymmetric uvular fargulomitis. It’s very rare...but it means you only have twelve months to live. I’m so sorry.”
Now, if you’ve seen one of these movies before, you know what happens. At first, there is stunned silence. This is followed by much screaming and weeping. That is followed by disbelief. “Die! I can’t die! Who will take care of little Timmy?” That is followed by anger, usually expressed by shouting up at the heavens while a camera pans away. “How can this happen to me? Noooooooo!!!!!” I’ve heard that shouting it loudly enough will invariably get you an Emmy. Then...well...then what?
Does the hero of the story just curl up into a whimpering fetal ball in a dark corner of their attic for eleven months, three weeks, and two days, waiting for the clock to run out?
Well, they probably do the fetal ball thing for at least a week. Then suddenly they realize: “Hey...I need to do all the things I’ve always wanted to do. I don’t have much time.” Getting that reminder that you are, in fact, mortal is something that has a tendency to focus the mind. So before asymmetric uvular fargulomitis takes it’s terrible toll, there’s a whole bunch of life to be lived. You have unfinished business, and you need to get busy with it. Every moment becomes utterly precious.
Have you always wanted to travel to India and see the Taj Mahal? Then now is the time to do it. Is there that one great idea for a novel that’s been pinging about in your head for years? Well, you’d better start writing it. Always wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle? Hey...no time like the present, and I know just the pastor who could teach you. Have you always wanted to run down one of those long smooth slopes near Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina, until the hang glider you’re running with bites into the breeze and the ground falls away and you rise up like an eagle? You have...let’s see...eleven months, three weeks, one day, twenty three hours and...um..54 minutes to get that done. So get on the stick.
Because there’s going to come a moment when the clock runs down to zero, and you’ve got no more time. The things you’ve left undone will remain undone.
Today’s parable from the Gospel of Matthew is all about things not getting done. It is a bit of a harsh one. In it, a rich man goes on a journey, and entrusts his property to three of his slaves. Upon his return, he discovers that the one who’d received the most had invested it in business ventures, and doubled it. The one who’d received half that amount had invested it in business ventures, and doubled it. The last one...well...he’d hidden it away from the world, making absolutely sure that there was no chance that any of it was lost.
The rich man gets seriously annoyed. How dare the slave fail to invest? He takes back the money, gives it to the first slave, and fires the guy with a flourish worthy of Donald Trump, casting him into the outer darkness of weeping and gnashing of teeth that comes when you fail to make it in reality tv.
it’s a difficult story to hear. It tends to strike us as a little unfair. Hey...didn’t the slave just do what they were supposed to do? It isn’t like they went to Atlantic City and lost it. It tends to strike us as perhaps a little unrealistic. What if that first slave had gone out and invested the ten talents in a nice solid business with a historic trend of solid return on investment...you know, like Lehman Brothers? How happy would the boss have been then?
That is, of course, not the point that Jesus was trying to make. This story comes to us in a section of Matthew that is dedicated to preparedness and setting ourselves right with God. This section begins back in Matthew 24:3, as the disciples gather on the Mount of Olives to listen to Jesus teach them in private. These teachings run through the end of chapter 25, and it’s the last sustained message from Jesus before the story of his betrayal and death begins. For that reason, the teachings have a consistent urgency and intensity about them, reminding us again and again of the importance of our actions in the now.
What we hear strongly in this morning’s parable builds upon the passage that Pastor Mike read to us last week. While the five bridesmaids managed not to get done what needed to get done, it isn’t just being unprepared that is the danger. It is the way in which we are unprepared. You certainly can’t say that this third servant wasn’t preparing for his master’s return. He knew what was coming...but chose to be passive and fearful in his response to that coming reality. His form of preparation for the inevitable was to refuse to take any risk, to retreat into the comfort of what was known. He hunkered down and sheltered in place.
But in our lives of faith, that approach doesn’t recognize a central part of what it means to live as a faithful Christian, that thing that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the fierce urgency of the now.” It is that “fierce urgency” that speaks to our need to act, and not simply remain passive and inert in our faith lives.
Every moment of our lives calls for that depth of commitment, because this life is far shorter than we’d like to admit. Every moment is infinitely precious, and we need to look to our unfinished business..and get busy.
11.16.08; Rev. David Williams
Scripture Lesson: Matthew 25:14-30
It’s a scenario that has launched a thousand Hallmark Movies of the Week. The main character has been feeling a bit under the weather. They finally get themselves around to going to the doctor, who administers some tests. The tests come back...well...they come back indicating that they need to do more tests. So off our protagonist goes to a specialist, who administers the additional tests.
There’s much sitting around in an examination room. As time goes by, the character starts feeling more and more annoyed. What could possibly be taking so long? They’ve got other things to do that day. There’s the laundry that needs doing, and then there’s that new client they need to call and set up a meeting with. And today was the day that you’d scheduled in time to research a new data plan for your cellphone. I mean, c’mon! What’s taking so long! There’s important stuff that needs to get done!
It is at this moment that the doctor comes through the door, and they’ve got a grim look on their face. They look right at the Hallmark Movie of the Week main character, and, swallowing, say, “We’ve gotten back the test results. I’m afraid you have asymmetric uvular fargulomitis. It’s very rare...but it means you only have twelve months to live. I’m so sorry.”
Now, if you’ve seen one of these movies before, you know what happens. At first, there is stunned silence. This is followed by much screaming and weeping. That is followed by disbelief. “Die! I can’t die! Who will take care of little Timmy?” That is followed by anger, usually expressed by shouting up at the heavens while a camera pans away. “How can this happen to me? Noooooooo!!!!!” I’ve heard that shouting it loudly enough will invariably get you an Emmy. Then...well...then what?
Does the hero of the story just curl up into a whimpering fetal ball in a dark corner of their attic for eleven months, three weeks, and two days, waiting for the clock to run out?
Well, they probably do the fetal ball thing for at least a week. Then suddenly they realize: “Hey...I need to do all the things I’ve always wanted to do. I don’t have much time.” Getting that reminder that you are, in fact, mortal is something that has a tendency to focus the mind. So before asymmetric uvular fargulomitis takes it’s terrible toll, there’s a whole bunch of life to be lived. You have unfinished business, and you need to get busy with it. Every moment becomes utterly precious.
Have you always wanted to travel to India and see the Taj Mahal? Then now is the time to do it. Is there that one great idea for a novel that’s been pinging about in your head for years? Well, you’d better start writing it. Always wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle? Hey...no time like the present, and I know just the pastor who could teach you. Have you always wanted to run down one of those long smooth slopes near Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina, until the hang glider you’re running with bites into the breeze and the ground falls away and you rise up like an eagle? You have...let’s see...eleven months, three weeks, one day, twenty three hours and...um..54 minutes to get that done. So get on the stick.
Because there’s going to come a moment when the clock runs down to zero, and you’ve got no more time. The things you’ve left undone will remain undone.
Today’s parable from the Gospel of Matthew is all about things not getting done. It is a bit of a harsh one. In it, a rich man goes on a journey, and entrusts his property to three of his slaves. Upon his return, he discovers that the one who’d received the most had invested it in business ventures, and doubled it. The one who’d received half that amount had invested it in business ventures, and doubled it. The last one...well...he’d hidden it away from the world, making absolutely sure that there was no chance that any of it was lost.
The rich man gets seriously annoyed. How dare the slave fail to invest? He takes back the money, gives it to the first slave, and fires the guy with a flourish worthy of Donald Trump, casting him into the outer darkness of weeping and gnashing of teeth that comes when you fail to make it in reality tv.
it’s a difficult story to hear. It tends to strike us as a little unfair. Hey...didn’t the slave just do what they were supposed to do? It isn’t like they went to Atlantic City and lost it. It tends to strike us as perhaps a little unrealistic. What if that first slave had gone out and invested the ten talents in a nice solid business with a historic trend of solid return on investment...you know, like Lehman Brothers? How happy would the boss have been then?
That is, of course, not the point that Jesus was trying to make. This story comes to us in a section of Matthew that is dedicated to preparedness and setting ourselves right with God. This section begins back in Matthew 24:3, as the disciples gather on the Mount of Olives to listen to Jesus teach them in private. These teachings run through the end of chapter 25, and it’s the last sustained message from Jesus before the story of his betrayal and death begins. For that reason, the teachings have a consistent urgency and intensity about them, reminding us again and again of the importance of our actions in the now.
What we hear strongly in this morning’s parable builds upon the passage that Pastor Mike read to us last week. While the five bridesmaids managed not to get done what needed to get done, it isn’t just being unprepared that is the danger. It is the way in which we are unprepared. You certainly can’t say that this third servant wasn’t preparing for his master’s return. He knew what was coming...but chose to be passive and fearful in his response to that coming reality. His form of preparation for the inevitable was to refuse to take any risk, to retreat into the comfort of what was known. He hunkered down and sheltered in place.
But in our lives of faith, that approach doesn’t recognize a central part of what it means to live as a faithful Christian, that thing that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the fierce urgency of the now.” It is that “fierce urgency” that speaks to our need to act, and not simply remain passive and inert in our faith lives.
Every moment of our lives calls for that depth of commitment, because this life is far shorter than we’d like to admit. Every moment is infinitely precious, and we need to look to our unfinished business..and get busy.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The One Law
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.
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 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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)