Seeing Salvation

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Christmas 1B

Text: Luke 2:22-40

²²When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³(as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord”), ²⁴and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.” ²⁵Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. ²⁶It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. ²⁷Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, ²⁸Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, ²⁹“Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; ³⁰for my eyes have seen your salvation, ³¹which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, ³²a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” ³³And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. ³⁴Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed ³⁵so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” ³⁶There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, ³⁷then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. ³⁸At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. ³⁹When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

Simeon and Anna.

They were fixtures at the Temple. They’re the ones who knew where those special candles and the decorations were stored from one year to the next, and just as important, HOW they were supposed to be stored. They kept track of that stuff because, for the most part, being in and around the Temple was their LIFE.  That is what they’d come to dedicate themselves to.

But they weren’t the only ones.  There were the priests, the assistants, the moneychangers, the suppliers, the deputy assistants and THEIR assistants. 

They were all there just as often as Simeon, and had structured their lives around Temple worship from the time they were kids. Some had been there longer than Anna, which was saying a LOT, considering how old she was now and how young she was when she lost her husband.

So what was different about Simeon and Anna? How did they key into what was really happening when Joseph and Mary showed up with their newborn baby, and not the others?

Scripture gives us part of the answer in introducing us to Simeon: The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die until he held the Messiah in his arms.  We find that in verse 26.  But if we go back just one phrase, we read this at the end of verse 25: ‘The Holy Spirit rested on him.’ So how does that happen? Does the Holy Spirit just show up one day and say ‘here I am!’ and move in like an unwelcome guest?

Not at all. 

To be in a relationship, there must be reciprocity – a mutual exchange.  That is, there is something offered and received by both people who are involved in the relationship.  If you have ever been involved in a one-way relationship it doesn’t take long to realize that the word relationship doesn’t quite apply when everything flows in one direction and one direction only.

It is no different when we enter into relationship with God. What WE struggle with is to try to identify what it is that we bring to the relationship.  After all, we ARE talking about being in a reciprocal relationship with the creator of the universe…talk about figuring out what present to give to the person who has everything … this is kind of the ultimate example.

But that IS the question, isn’t it? What would God want with us, much less FROM us? As soon as we hear that, if we’ve spent any time in Sunday School, the quick and easy answer is right on the tip of our tongues: our hearts, or our lives, our souls.  But I think that might actually skip over what is at the heart of the question.

Let me back up a little bit.  We think of being in relationship with God in terms of salvation.  Or we’ve been trained to think that way: that a relationship with God MEANS being ‘saved’.  And to a degree that is correct.  But let’s look at this from a slightly different perspective. 

We believe salvation is by grace through faith, not by works, to quote scripture, so if salvation is a done deal as soon as we have the faith to declare that Jesus is Lord of our lives, then what does that mean for our relationship with the Lord?  In other words, if, as soon as we move in the direction of God and receive the gift of salvation, THAT aspect of our relationship is taken care of, God is saying, essentially, ‘you know all that stuff you worry about doing and being and following in order to gain salvation?  The right living, the right thinking, the proper attitude, the right schedule of church attendance, all that stuff, it’s dust in the wind.  You HAVE salvation.  Here, it’s yours.  Free to you.  Somewhat costly to me, but that’s just the kind of God I am.

So, now, what are you going to DO about it? How are you going to carry on, in the understanding that what you do has absolutely no bearing on your salvation, on how much I love you or on what I was willing to do for you, because that’s all been taken care of?

If we reframe the question of our relationship with God away from that initial salvific connection into an ongoing, growing, and developing relationship, then we begin to understand that THIS relationship is not that different from other relationships in our lives – of course, this one MATTERS exponentially MORE than other relationships we may have, but it is also one that we express THROUGH ALL the other relationships in our lives.  But in the sense that it is one that we have to work at, that we pursue, that we engage, that we … nurture, that we tend to, that we CARE about, it is not so different. 

You see, God wants company.

God created us to be in communion with him. Genesis tells us that God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Actually, if you read the verse, it’s not exactly such an idyllic picture. That verse, in chapter 3 verse 8, says that Adam and Even heard God walking in the Garden, and they hid themselves, because they knew they had sinned. It is not an image of pre-fall perfect harmony, but of a post-fall seeking – on the part of God – for his creation – even then, however you want to interpret the beginning of Genesis, the image we have is of a God who is already, as soon as that separation happens, working to reestablish the relationship with us.

And that is the story that is found throughout scripture. Time after time after time, we turn away from God, or turn away from who God intends us to be, and are either distracted by other shiny but ultimately worthless ‘treasures’, and God is always coming after us, sending food in the night, prophets to declare his jealous love, sending angels to announce his purpose into our lives, and, eventually, coming and living with us.

So how we ‘see’ salvation changes depending on how we view our relationship with God. If we think of that relationship in formulaic terms – sort of like a math equation – A plus B = C; where A is God and B is us and C is salvation and that’s IT, then it is a very bare-bones, shallow image of salvation, isn’t it?

If, however, we think of our relationship with God as one that is as involved, as interesting, as demanding as our relationship to our dearest and closest friend, then we begin to get the picture of who God has been throughout history – you’ve heard me say it before, God is about relationships – God is a relational God – that is how God communicates, that’s how God operates.

Will you join me in entering into that relationship more deeply and fully this year?  

Let’s pray.

Announcements and Blessings

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Advent 3B

Text: Luke 1:39-56

³⁹In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴²and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” ⁴⁶And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵²He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” ⁵⁶And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

My knowledge of Mary growing up was limited to basically two events.  She was present at Jesus’ conception and birth, and she was present at his death.  She kind of ‘bookended’ the gospel story.  Part of the reason she was limited to that in my upbringing was I’m sure, due to the fact that I was a Baptist in a country that even now professes to be over 80% Roman Catholic. And while it is a sad statement, it is also a true statement that just as the reformers were apt to do, Baptists in Chile who came out of the Roman Catholic tradition tended to leave lots of things behind; the veneration of saints, the theology of sacraments, the confessional, infant baptism, and the veneration of Mary – in many instances simply because they were so tied to the Roman Catholic tradition.    

I think that dearth of knowledge – that scarcity of exploration of Mary’s experience, and most importantly, her response to what is the single biggest event in human history made for a lesser understanding of the message of the gospels for me.

I’m not going to come out and tell you we need to begin to set up an altar with the image of Mary, or that we should think of her as co-redemptress alongside Christ, or that we should pray to her so SHE can speak to God on our behalf, I am too Baptist to do that. 

What I will say is that we DO need to stop and think about Mary more often than simply twice a year.  And I say that fully realizing that in some cases, the only time many people DO stop and think about JESUS is at those same two times each year, so we’re crowding the scene a little bit, but bear with me.

If, as it is commonly accepted today, Mary was a young teenager – around 14 years of age – when she found out she was pregnant, I wonder what the REAL first thought that went through her head was.  I mean, yeah, the first words RECORDED that came out of her mouth were ‘how so, I’m a virgin?’ followed shortly by ‘here am I, the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.’   But I would love to know what her first THOUGHT was.  I wonder if it might have been something that would be impolite to translate from the Aramaic she spoke?  I wonder if her first thought was fear?  Societal norms were different in those days – to put it mildly – and young girls of fourteen were already of an age when they could begin to conceive, so I don’t think there was a freak-out moment when she realized she wasn’t going to get to play with her friends anymore.  She had probably long since given up childish things and had for at least two if not three years been a working member of the household – whether in keeping house, or cooking, helping with the family business or tending to some responsibility or other, she was not a child. 

In our society today, we enjoy an extended childhood far beyond what our ancestors did – and far beyond what many other cultures in the world today do as well, and our expectations of what is proper for a young woman of 14 and what is not are different from that which was common in first century Palestine.  But in one way they do remain somewhat aligned – in that a child is better BOTH conceived and born within the bounds of a loving relationship between his or her parents. I fully realize that seems to be less and less the norm, but that line in the gospel narrative still resonates with us today.  We can associate with Joseph’s response to the news of Mary’s condition – that he would quietly and discreetly dis-engage from her so that there would be less of a hullabaloo when the folks in town began to notice the growing baby bump. 

I am of two minds when it comes to the “Magnificat” – that is the name given to the song that Mary sings after she and Elizabeth get together - it is called that because ‘magnificat’ is the word that comes first in the Latin version of scriptures that we read in English as ‘my soul magnifies the Lord’ – it is a beautiful hymn, a beautiful expression of someone being totally in love with the will of God for their lives, totally submitted to whatever that means for them, totally engaged in moving forward into it.  It even manages to include echoes of God’s justice that sound an awful lot like it comes from Psalms than from the New Testament.  It’s closest in wording to Hannah’s song, which is found in 1 Samuel 2:1-10.  So there is a pretty good chance that Mary was paraphrasing a passage of scripture that she grew up with and personalized it for herself on this occasion. 

There is also the chance that the whole hymn was inserted at some point in the early oral history of the church – the words being placed in Mary’s mouth by faithful followers who would rather hear this than Mary’s cries of joy and fear intermingled with peals of laughter when Elizabeth comes to her door and opens it and sees her and says “Holy crap! You too?!”  There are many possibilities that can be explored in that way. 

But God has seen fit to give us the Canon in this form, and we believe that to be for a reason, and however it came to be, God was in the process, so here we have this joyful, faithful, spiritually uplifting and idealized response to God’s moving in her life from the woman who stuck it out.  She never denied Jesus.  She pushed him when he needed to be pushed, at that wedding in Cana, scripture doesn’t say she gave him a spanking when he got away from the family when they went to the temple when he was twelve, and she didn’t, but I can promise you that somewhere in there with the fear any parent feels when they temporarily lose a child in a place they don’t live, she probably thought ‘just wait … when we get home …’

You see, Mary has, to some degree even more than the apostles and Jesus himself, been dehumanized in the centuries since she found out she was pregnant.  It makes it that much harder to connect with her today.  We read about the disciples making mistakes or being boneheaded about something, we read about how Jesus cried, or was angry, or was tired and rested.  We read the letters of Paul and his humanity comes through loud and clear.  He is angry, he is sarcastic, he is blunt, but he can also be a poet, he can evoke images with sublime words that cut to our very core. 

So don’t be shy about studying Mary, reading books about her, doing Bible Studies about her.  She’s no more or less human than every other character in the Bible. 

And while God DID use her in a special way, the bottom line is that she was willing to LET God use her – in whatever way God needed to.

We can all learn from her submission, her faithfulness in the face of the uncertainty of what the future held, and her willingness to continue to follow and to believe – wherever that ended up taking her – even if it was to the foot of the cross at Calvary.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

Announcements and blessings … we have been blessed beyond measure, insofar as we have also, within us our Lord Jesus.  But a blessing as we know, is not something to be contained within ourselves, but is to be shared.  So insofar as we live out that blessing of having Jesus in us, we are announcing his presence.  We are announcing that he is active and living in the world, and he is doing that through us.  So that is our challenge. That is what has always been our challenge – to make our living in that sense comparable to Mary’s.  And it’s not a perfect model to go after, as idealized as her life IS in the gospels.  It is achievable.  It’s not just an idea we hold within ourselves, it’s not just a concept that we profess to believe; it’s not just a life ethic that we follow.  We host in ourselves the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit is out to do amazing things.  REALLY amazing things, if we just let him.

Let’s pray.

All The Nations

 Sunday, November 20, 2011

Christ The King A

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton), Warsaw VA

Text: Matthew 25:31-46

³¹“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. ³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, ³³and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. ³⁴Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; ³⁵for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ ³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ ⁴⁰And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ ⁴¹Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴²for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ ⁴⁴Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ ⁴⁵Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ ⁴⁶And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Jesus talks about salvation in different contexts to different audiences and in different ways throughout the Gospels.

Sometimes he’s pretty cryptic. Sometimes he’s a little clearer. Sometimes he speaks in parables and stories. But, nowhere else does Jesus so explicitly tell us who’s going to Heaven and who’s going to Hell like he does in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew.

In Matthew 25, there’s that theme of separation again. Jesus divides humanity into two teams: the sheep and the goats. The sheep go to his “right hand,” are declared “blessed” by their Father, and “inherit the kingdom prepared for them since the foundation of the world.” When it is all said and done, they go into “eternal life.”

The “goats” on the other hand, aren’t quite as fortunate. They go to his “left hand,” are declared “accursed,” and are relegated to “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” for an eternity of “punishment.”

Stop and ask yourself, which team would you prefer to be on? I think Jesus makes this choice a pretty easy one.

Now, how do we get on the sheep team? How do we get picked for sheep duty? Well, the Good News is that Jesus tells us in detail.

“…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Folks who do such things get to play on the sheep team, where the signing bonuses are out of this world.

The “goats” on the other hand, let hungry people go hungry. They don’t bother giving thirsty people anything to drink. They ignore strangers, letting them know that they are absolutely unwelcome. And they don’t give clothes to people who need them, don’t visit the sick and lonely, and let people rot in jail or prison without a thought.

It’s interesting to notice the importance of this teaching being given by Jesus in the last week of his life.

In fact, this is one of the last things Jesus says to his followers before he’s nailed to the cross in the Gospel of Matthew. What Jesus is doing here, at the end point of his earthly ministry, is making it very clear to people who claimed to be his disciples and supporters that there is no gray area at all when it comes to following him.

You’re either with him, or you aren’t.

The way to tell which it is, is by looking at how you live your life. To be on Jesus’ side means that you’re actively caring for the poor, the needy, the sick, and the lonely. To not do such things means that you’re really not with him at all, but against him. And if you’re against him, the signing bonus carries with it … fire and brimstone.

This being one of Jesus’ last teachings should add some weight to this message. After all, who remembers the coach’s locker room speech from some game in the middle of the season? But, the one before the big championship game is seared into our hearts and minds forever.

One of the interesting things about this lesson from the last few pages of Jesus’ earthly life is that the sheep didn’t know that they were earning heaven by their actions! These sheep said:

Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?

They had no idea that their good deeds meant that they were inheriting the Kingdom prepared for them. They weren’t trying to earn God’s favor, or sneak around his mercy. The sheep weren’t fending for themselves, desperately trying to avoid punishment and earn eternal rewards for themselves.

They just saw people in need, and they served them. They were just living their lives of faith the way that they always did. They were living their lives focused on God and the needs of others instead on themselves and their own needs.

The difference between some group of sheep doing these deeds trying to get to heaven, and sheep doing the same exact deeds unaware of the incredible consequences, is that the actions of the latter group are authentic. They are genuinely loving their neighbor, and genuinely serving the needs of others, instead of selfishly looking out for themselves.

That is what God wants of us.

And, in the last week of Jesus’ life, that is the kind of life Jesus is calling his followers to live.

This is what loving our neighbor as ourselves is about. Loving our neighbor just to get ourselves to heaven wouldn’t be real love, it’d be selfishness. Preoccupation with our own salvation therefore is exactly what Jesus is warning us against. When you’re living your life loving your neighbor, you don’t have time to selfishly worry about YOU!

Nor do you have to.

The Good News here is that there is no checklist of good deeds to fill out.

Jesus is talking about a way of life here, and it’s one that isn’t motivated out of the fear of Hell or the hope of heaven, but a life that’s driven by an authentic love.

It’s a way of life that recognizes that Christianity isn’t about us! It’s not about self-preservation, feeling good, or getting front row seats in Heaven.

If this isn’t crystal clear from the sheep and goats story, read on in the Gospel of Matthew until you get to the crucifixion. There, Jesus demonstrates the exact same selfless, genuine, and authentic love that he demands of us. He was flogged, mocked, tortured, and executed for God and for us, not for himself. It wasn’t some selfish egomaniacal stunt to gain fame and fortune. He loved God and us with his life and his death, and that is exactly what he asks of us.

And with that, it makes sense that Jesus gives this lesson in the last week of his life. It also makes sense to replace the well-known query used by modern evangelists, “Are you saved?” with the more appropriate, “Do you genuinely love God and your neighbor, not for your own gain, but for true brotherly and Godly love?”

Yeah, it takes a little longer to spit that out, but so do most important things.

Being sheep of the shepherd isn’t about us. Nor is it about being saved, or getting rewards, however eternal they may be. Being sheep of the shepherd is about following our shepherd’s lead, and loving others as he has loved us and given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:2)

So what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

I think it serves as a reminder of how we need to be checking our motivation, not just our actions, but how we come to the decision to do something – however good it may appear to be – and why?  Are we doing it with an eye towards how it will look to the surrounding community?  Are we looking for a good reputation among sister churches in the area?  That may be all good and well, but I hope that is not the ONLY reason we do stuff.  Are we doing things to be able to include neat little tidbits in our annual church report that tallies how many people have participated in our various activities, or joined us for special events? 

What it boils down to is this:  Doing things is important, but WHY we do them is AS important as DOING them. 

Let’s pray. 

Into The Joy

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Jerusalem Baptist Church (Emmerton) Warsaw VA

Ordinary 33A

Text: Matthew 25:14-30

You know how when you watch a movie, not in the theaters, but either on television or in some recorded format, before the actual start of the movie, a black screen comes up, and, in white letters so that it is clearly legible, a message is projected about the movie you are about to watch?  If you are watching it on television, it usually has something to say about the movie having been formatted to fit the screen, and edited to run in the allotted time, or edited for content.  If you are watching it on tape or DVD, the message has more to say about the rest of the material – the bonus features – that is on the DVD or the tape – about the views and opinions expressed in the interviews and commentaries not necessarily being those of the production and distribution companies, but that they are solely those of the participants – the actors and the production staff as individuals? Those are known as disclaimers.  In a legal sense, they are messages letting you know in advance something specific about what is coming next. 

I open the message this morning with a disclaimer, and it is this:  The Parable of the Talents has, as long as I can remember, been at best unsettling to me.  At worst, it has caused me to view my call to obedience and faithful service in a terribly negative light – I mean, seriously, who wants to be cast into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth?  But is that enough of a reason to ENGAGE in that obedience and faithful service, out of FEAR of being cast into the outer darkness?

If we’ve spent any amount of time in our upbringing listening to hellfire and brimstone sermons, we immediately associate that phrase – weeping and gnashing of teeth – with judgment – and almost universally with the judgment of God. It would seem to tie in with the preceding passages that start back in chapter 24, as I mentioned last week. 

These two chapters are considered by some scholars to be the last of five great discourses that Jesus gives in Matthew’s Gospel.  If you remember, Matthew was specifically focused on highlighting Jesus’ fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament – to identify him as what the Hebrew people were looking for – the Messiah. It is a commonly held understanding that Matthew laid out these five discourses as a counterbalance to the Pentateuch – the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures; in some ways, a mirror in which the fulfillment of those ancient writings could be viewed.

 

To my best recollection, I have only heard this passage preached on in one interpretation: as an exhortation to Jesus' disciples to use their God-given gifts in the service of God, and to take risks for the sake of the Kingdom of God. These gifts have been seen to include personal abilities ("talents" in the everyday sense), as well as personal wealth. Failure to use one's gifts, the parable suggests, will result in judgment.

I can understand that.  That is a clear interpretation and a sensible one as well, taking into account the surrounding parables, and the general tone of the discourse.

So let’s go with that interpretation first, and then look at a couple of other, less well-known ones. 

It is fairly straightforward.  The man is Jesus, and he has gone away and left his servants, that is, US, to tend to his business.  He gives each of us varying amounts of things to tend to, and we are responsible for seeing that his business grows, that his wealth increases, that his kingdom grows, in other words.  The first two servants take what he gives them and do amazing things with it.  They invest it, they end up multiplying it like a well-connected Wall Street insider, who knows who to call, knows what to buy and when, knows the ins and outs of high finance, because we are talking about high finance here, the equivalent of hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars being entrusted to the servants.

The interpretation works out something like this:  the talents being discussed, rather than being a sum of money, are to be understood in OUR normal, run-of-the-mill use of the word:  our skills, our abilities, our gifts.  You have a knack for putting words together with music, you have a natural ability to be a welcoming presence to anyone who walks in the door, you are able to put people at ease in an otherwise tense situation, you can defuse an argument and bring the opposite sides to an agreement that is more than acceptable to those who would otherwise end up as enemies.

The message of the parable is this:  use those talents, those skills and gifts for the furthering of the Kingdom of God.  Yes, each of them involves risking something – personal time, energy, an investment of effort, of emotional capital that COULD potentially result in a negative outcome – there is a real possibility that the people you are investing IN will reject what you offer, will reject the welcome, will reject the proffered solution to the conflict, will not be moved by the song you wrote, and remain untouched by the Spirit.  That risk comes with the territory.  But that doesn’t keep you from risking anyway. 

Or at least it didn’t keep the first two servants from taking the risk with what they’d been given. 

That third servant though, he didn’t get it.  He didn’t understand the treasure he’d been given.  Sure, it was a smaller amount than the other two had received, but it was still not an inconsiderable amount. 

The lesson is: no matter what you’ve been given, no matter how insignificant it appears to you, God will still use it if you invest it – if you risk it for the sake of the Kingdom. 

The consequences are too terrible to be ignored.  See what happened to the servant who was given just the one talent and then turned around and HID it rather than RISKED it?

So this first interpretation lands on this conclusion: we’re reminded of it in our congregational benediction every time we share it: Risk something BIG for something GOOD, and that “good” thing is nothing less than the Kingdom of God.     

And it is an especially timely understanding of the passage, since most churches across the country dedicate some portion of the fall of each year as Stewardship Emphasis time.  It ties in with the question of how well we are stewarding what God has given us – both financially and in terms of time and skills and abilities and gifts – and makes for fairly easy dovetails into reviewing what the upcoming budget year looks like, what we hope to accomplish, and how. There is good evidence to suggest that this understanding of the parable of the talents is, in fact, the reason we THINK of gifts and skills and abilities AS talents – the meaning of the word was changed through this interpretation of THIS parable.

So that is the first and most common interpretation.

The second is not really that different from the first.  The only shift is in whom the parable is focused on.  It’s still about wasting what you’ve been entrusted with, and the end result is still the same, but the subjects of criticism are not the listeners.  This is not a warning to each individual hearing the story to do what they can with what God has given them for the sake of the Kingdom, rather it is a criticism of the Religious Leaders of the time for squandering that with which they had been entrusted by God – namely, the word of God and the care of God’s people – and simply maintained their place in society.  They’d lost sight of the commission that God included in the covenant with the people of Israel to be a blessing to the nations of the world; basically, to spread the just and righteous precepts of God across the world. They had opted instead to bury their treasure and keep it to themselves, not spread it and double it’s size while he was away. 

There is plenty of room to understand the parable in this sense.  After all, Jesus spent a lot of time calling a spade a spade when talking – to not say arguing – with the religious leadership that he kept running afoul of.

Before I get into the third interpretation, I need to review something with you.  There are different types of parables found in the Gospels.  Some of them are Kingdom Parables – usually they are easy to identify, because they start out with the words “The Kingdom of God (or Heaven) is like …”.  These parables are usually presented as an image of what the Reign of God will look like, or will speak to God’s action that brings that reign into more of a reality through Jesus’ followers.  There are also Wisdom Parables, which are teachings that are just that – words of wisdom – knowledge to be retained for future reference.  Here is the interpretation of the parable of the talents as a wisdom parable, and I am freely borrowing from David Ewart, a minister of the United Church of Canada, who says,

How might this parable have sounded to the peasants who were Jesus' followers?

First, they would not see themselves as any of the characters in the story. They certainly were not "masters," nor were they even the slaves of a master.

Second, they would have been well aware that it was against the law of Moses to charge interest. And, they would remember that when the twelve tribes entered the Promised Land, the "promise" was that every family would receive and hold a share of that land - FOREVER. Therefore, those who had gotten rich, did so by stealing land that rightly belonged to others. This understanding of the rich is shown in Verse 26:

I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter.

In other words, the rich get rich by stealing what belongs to others.

Third, for the followers of Jesus, the slave who buried the talent was doing the honourable thing. He was not using the wealth to steal even more. He was protecting his master's wealth in the safest way possible.

Fourth, notice that this parable does NOT begin, "the Kingdom of heaven is like..." In fact, the opening two words in Verse 14 are variously translated:

                    

                   "For it is as if" (New Revised Standard Version)

                   "Again, it will be like" (New International Version)

                   "It's also like" (The Message)

But what exactly is the "it" that the following parable is like? Does the "it" refer to the Kingdom of Heaven (i.e. referring to the subject in Verse 1); or does the "it" refer to the delay of the coming of the Kingdom (i.e., referring to the subject in Verse 13)?

In Luke 19, this story is told following the story of Zacchaeus - a rich man who changes his evil ways! Surely this is a sign that the Kingdom is eminently at hand? Verse 11 then gives this introduction to the parable:

(Jesus) went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the Kingdom of God was to appear immediately.

I take it that Luke intends us to hear this parable NOT as a teaching about the Kingdom, but as a caution against thinking that the Kingdom was coming immediately.

And so, similarly, the "it" in Matthew 25:14 refers to the subject in the previous verse 13:

Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour (when the Kingdom of Heaven will arrive).

The parable of the talents then is NOT intended to be an introductory lesson on how the Kingdom of Heaven is like modern Western capitalism - extolling using wealth to make even more wealth.

As George Hermanson puts it in his sermon, A Kingdom of Surprises, the servant who buries the talents acts as a whistle-blower. He takes a very public action that draws attention to the injustice that has come to be taken as "business as usual."

Burying the talents is a classic piece of non-violent resistance: the servant does nothing to harm anyone, but he makes a public act of refusing to participate in the unjust system of acquiring wealth for the few by impoverishing the many.

The master's wrath is the response of an elite who has been publicly shamed by one of lower status.

It is highly ironic - to say the least - that the master's words to the servant have been taken by the church to be Jesus' words, and have been used to continue to support the very practices that the parable condemns.

David Ewart believes this is NOT a "Kingdom" parable; he believes it is a “Wisdom” parable teaching us about the perils and difficulties of the ways of the world until the Kingdom comes. It warns us to continue to expect the rich to steal from the poor; and for the followers of Jesus to expect to be punished by the rich for behaving honorably. (And in passing says ‘So much for all the stewardship sermons I have preached using this text!’)

So what does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

A Sunday morning message is not supposed to be a lecture on biblical interpretation.  It is supposed to be an encounter with the living word of God.  I would invite you to reflect on each of these interpretations of this passage and consider which brings it most to life – which resonates with you the most at this time in your life and in this place in your life, because that is the way the living word works.  That is how the Spirit prompts and moves and nudges us into a deeper knowledge of who Christ is and of how God wants to be in relationship with us.

Whether you resonate with a given interpretation or not – you may even have an understanding that is unique to you – know that God is working through your understanding to bring to full fruition God’s Kingdom in your life.  It is that specific, that individual, even as God is working to make the Kingdom a reality on the macro level – across the world.  

And so we move into the response time of the service of worship.  Whether you identified with the servant entrusted with five talents, two talents, one talent, or as none of the above; whether you took this parable to be a word of admonition for the religious leaders around you – including me – or whether it clicked for you as a warning about how things might continue to be until the Kingdom of God is truly and completely established here on earth as it is in heaven, I invite you to live out that reality in your life this afternoon, this evening, this week. 

Let’s pray.     

Neither The Day Nor The Hour

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Ordinary 32A

Text: Matthew 25:1-13

Theme: How normal (or normative) do we make our faith?

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. ²Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. ³When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; ⁴but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. ⁵As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. ⁶But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ ⁷Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ ⁹But the wise replied, ‘No! There will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ ¹⁰And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. ¹¹Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ ¹²But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ ¹³Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

A question for us this morning:  when I read phrases like “the bridegroom”, “the wedding banquet” and “neither the day nor the hour”, what do we associate that imagery and those phrases with most frequently? 

If you answered “the second coming” or “the rapture” or “Jesus’ return”, you wouldn’t be alone.  There are plenty of folks who would affirm unequivocally that this passage is a picture of the eschatological event – that is the theological term for the ‘end times’ – the eschaton – in which Jesus will return to and establish his reign on earth.

All the elements are there:  Jesus – the bridegroom – the wedding banquet – the celebration – and the reference to ‘neither the day nor the hour’ echoes in our minds with what Jesus says in the Gospel of John in answer to a direct question about that specifically, so therefore, THIS passage MUST ALSO be referring to the second coming, right?

You already know what my answer will be, don’t you?

I would invite us to look at this passage differently, and take into account what both the preceding and the following passages speak to as we look at these verses. 

In previous passages, Jesus has gone into a haunting vision of what that time will be like – that unexpected but predicted return – put to music by Larry Norman in his song “I Wish We’d All Been Ready”; two men walking up a hill, one disappears and one’s left standing still … I wish we’d all been ready, a man and wife asleep in bed, she hears a noise and turns her head, he’s gone, … you get the picture.  The text is slightly different: “⁴⁰Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.” It is a description of something that happens suddenly and in the middle of everyday events.  

In what has become a relatively recent historical phenomenon that truly only developed since the 1830’s, we have this frenetic, morbid fascination with ‘end of the world’ scenarios.  Multimillion-dollar movies have been made about it, hundreds if not thousands of books have been written and sold about the subject.  We want to know what comes next. 

We have watched as claim after claim of the impending end of the world has come and gone.  While there was an expectation of Jesus’ prompt return among those first Christians in the early years of the growth of the movement of followers of Jesus, when time continued to pass and there WAS no triumphant return, no clouds rolling back, no thundering trumpets, people began to understand the true nature of Jesus’ remarks.

Most recently we heard predictions of the rapture to take place this past spring, and the end of the world to have taken place on October 21^st.  When nothing discernible happened in May, we were told it was not so much a physical rapture as it was a spiritual one … but that the end of the world was inevitably and irrevocably, going to take place right at three weeks ago. 

As you can tell, we’re still here.  So is the world.  Not much has changed. 

There were several headlines that ran a few days after the expected date that claimed that the man who made those predictions was sorry, that he was apologizing and repented of his false teaching. 

But a closer review of what his statement said reveals that, in the face of such a total negation of what he claimed was revealed to him in scripture, which WAS the exact time and date of the end of the world – rather than take responsibility for shattering peoples’ faith by first building their foundation not on Christ but on this prediction of a date after which there would be no need to worry about ANYTHING – bills to pay, families to feed, and clothes to wear, shelter to protect and a means by which to provide all of that, this man came out to say that, since God is in ultimate control of everything, then it must have been God that led him to come to the wrong conclusions regarding the rapture and the end of the world, and therefore it was not him but God who is to blame, and also to be trusted to not have abandoned us.

I ask you:  does a god who would do that appeal to you at all?  Does this man’s call to trust a god who would, in essence, mislead his followers in that way and yet expect them to trust him seem like a god worthy of our worship and praise? Our obedience?

So here is Jesus, painting this incredible word picture of all kinds of things happening at the end of the world, the Sun going dark, the moon not shining, wars and rumors of wars, the whole nine yards.  And at the end of this, after saying that THESE WILL BE THE SIGNS, BE READY, he includes this, “³⁶“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

It would seem our friend with the multiple failed predictions didn’t pay attention to that part of the Gospel.

Then Jesus begins to tell the stories of people paying attention and people… not.  People doing and LIVING the Gospel message and people … not.  People thinking they were on the inside but finding out that they were … not. 

Here’s the deal:  we don’t live our lives – we don’t live the life of CHRIST in distraction mode.  We can’t. We are either present for Jesus and are about living a life that brings about reconciliation and forgiveness into the world beginning within the relationships in our own lives right here and right now or we are … not. 

If we are not outwardly expressing the experience that we claim to have inwardly, that disconnect is a really big deal.  We may then need to reexamine whether or not we actually believe what we say we believe about who Christ was and is, or maybe we need to reconnect with that person we were at that moment when it DID become clear to us that our righteousness is not our own, that it is fully and completely the gift of grace. 

If we have somewhere along the line forgotten that and come to believe that we are better than another because of something they have done, or failed to do, or because of a disagreement we may have had, and we have not taken active steps to mend that relationship, we are being as foolish and unprepared as the five bridesmaids who ran out of oil for their lamps.  

Our unpreparedness is our own responsibility.  We are each accountable.  And insofar as we as a community allow unpreparedness to remain, insofar as we don’t reach out in love and forgiveness to each other, we as a community are ALSO accountable. 

The passages following this one are the parable of the Talents and the parable of the Sheep and the Goats.  Familiar images again:  a landlord gives his servants different amounts of money to be responsible for while he is away, and two handle their responsibility faithfully.  One does not.  In the other, people are separated based on how they treated the weakest around them – the ones least able to help them in some way in return.   

In a nutshell, Jesus said he himself did not know when he’d be back, that only God does.       

In the meantime, we are to be about that business of reconciliation and forgiveness.  If that is missing from our lives, then we have entirely missed the point and the message and the LIFE of Jesus.

***

“Why do you do what you do?” 

The question comes up periodically as I go through my week, helping people that ask, or helping people whom I am asked TO help. 

I’ve not been able to boil the answer down to a concise, simple, memorable phrase or two.  Sometimes I simply answer, “It’s what I DO.”  Sometimes the answer is ‘because I can.’  Other times I try to go into the explanation – which is more complete, but is also a bit wordy:  “I do this (helping) because there are people in the churches who support me who want you to know that they care about you, your family and how you are doing.” 

On occasion, I’m ‘on’ enough to be able to answer, ‘I do this because God has shown me so much love through Jesus that this is one way in which I can show what that love feels like.”

Rarely is my answer one that includes the statement: ‘because I want to get into heaven after I die,’ or, ‘because if Jesus comes back, I want him to see me doing this instead of something else.’

I DO, but that’s beside the point.  J

The point is this:  We live the truth of reconciliation and forgiveness in our lives – that means in our relationships, how we respond, how we react, how we engage with each other and the community around us – because of or out of knowing that to be a reality in our own case in our own relationship with God.  Not because we see it as a formula for “If you do A, then B will happen, where A is ‘good things’ and B is ‘you’ll get into heaven’.” 

When we pray “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven” that starts with us.  How else COULD it start, if WE’RE the ones praying?

Think on this fact:  God loves you.  God is in the process of redeeming you.  God cares for you and wants you to be who he created you to be.  Fully, completely engaged in living an abundant life that is free from bitterness and resentment and hatred; not free from struggle and hardship, but free to live in a joy that is so profound that it transcends our circumstances and taps into the same source that fires the sun and the billions of stars across the universe, that marks the beats of our hearts, that sets us spinning around each other in this beautiful dance of life that we’ve been given.

Let’s pray.