Energy of Love: A Sermon for All Saints' Day, 6 November 2011

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Mer Rouge, La. & Church of the Redeemer, Oak Ridge, La.

As many of you know, I’m a relative newcomer to the Episcopal Church and I came from a radically different “non-liturgical” tradition. I was raised Mennonite, a Protestant denomination descended directly from the original Anabaptists. It was a tradition in which the concept of “saints” was akin to idol worship.

Of course, I now understand that the hostility of the Mennonite Church toward “saints” was really about the Medieval church’s abuses of Saints with a capital S, such things as encouraging magical thinking about the Saints in order to extract money from the devout through the selling of relics—relics often of highly questionable authenticity.

Today All Saints’ is among my favorite church feast days, and I’ll say more about that in a moment. But first a word of explanation. It kind of doesn’t seem like All Saints’ Sunday because Halloween was almost a week ago and we know there’s connection, even if we get hazy about what that connection is!

All Saints’ was established as a major feast day of the church to honor all of those saints with a capital S. It was set to be celebrated November 1st. A lesser feast called “All Souls,’” for the purpose of celebrating ALL of the faithful departed, was set for November 2nd. These dates were most likely chosen because late October was already a time of annual celebrations of the harvest, which in some cultures included honoring the dead.

Revelation 7:9-12

                                   
The Saints with a capital S were also called “Hallows,” short for “the hallowed ones,” and so the evening before All Saints’ was called “All Hallows Eve,” later shortened to “Halloween.” The Halloween costume began as a way to mock evil by dressing up and partying in scary outfits.

Over time, All Saints’ and All Souls’ kind of merged, at least in the Western Church, and today we celebrate both on a single day. And here’s the final bit of historical trivia: Since November 1st doesn’t usually fall on a Sunday, we transfer the celebration to a Sunday, but according to the quaint traditions of the Anglicans, we can only transfer it to the Sunday following November 1.

So here we are, nearly a week after the fact, celebrating All Saints’ Day! And it is a day on which we honor not only the official saints of the church, the saints with a capital S, but all of the faithful departed.

Many of us—perhaps most of us—are here in these pews this morning because of the examples of faith, hope and charity lived out in front of us by those who have gone before us to their heavenly reward. When I hear those words from John’s Revelation (7:9-17, NRSV), I see faces in that multitude of witnesses: my parents and grandparents, pastors and teachers over the years.

Even those with whom I no longer agree, like my Mennonite preachers and teachers who were anti-saint. There they are among the multitude, robed in white, waving palm branches and saying, Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!

But if we listen carefully to John, we see in that multitude not only the faces of our own dear departed, but strange faces in all hues. And we hear their rejoicing not only in our own comforting language but in many languages at once.

On that glorious day when we stand within the multitude, I believe we will hear many names for God, names like Yahweh and Allah.

This picture painted by John is comforting, but surely it’s also an antidote for all religious exceptionalism. Whenever we are tempted to think we’ve got the right answers, the right doctrine, the right religious practice, we would do well to remember this image. Who knows with whom we will be rubbing elbows when we ourselves stand among the multitude?

Turning to today’s Gospel lesson, we learn more about that multitude. It is Jesus’ beloved Beatitudes, a part of the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5:1-12, NRSV).

These too are comforting words: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Who among us has never felt “poor in spirit”? Who has never mourned? Who has never felt powerless in the face of the challenges of our political system? Our economic system?

The meek shall inherit the earth? Not likely! At least not by earthly standards.

Life is often hard. We are comforted by these words because they promise that in spite of the very real difficulties of everyday life, a better day will come.

They promise that we will ultimately be measured by other standards, God’s generous, loving and merciful standards. And we will not be found wanting.

These words give us hope for that future glory so vividly shown through John’s vision.

But these comforting words might also serve as a warning and cautionary tale. I cannot read the Beatitudes without being reminded of those old Burma Shave advertising signs. Remember those?

Burma Shave Signs

 Kind of like the Beatitudes, the Burma Shave signs set up a situation, then come back with a resolution—one that is kind of unexpected. And many of them were cautionary tales as well. Here’s one I found on the Internet yesterday: Big mistake, Many make, Rely on horn, Instead of brake. Burma Shave.

The Beatitudes make us smile. But they also remind us of our responsibilities as saints as long as we are here on this earth.

WE are to comfort those who mourn. WE are to fill the hungry and thirsty. WE are to be merciful. WE are to be peacemakers.

WE are to seek God above all else and love our neighbors as ourselves. And we can rejoice when that gets us into trouble with those systems and forces that oppress humankind.

In his book Beautiful Losers, Leonard Cohen wrote: What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. ...I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. …Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shapes of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love. (Thanks to the Website Edge of the Enclosure for this quote.)

The “energy of love” is God. When we connect with it, we become saints—agents of God’s love on earth.

AMEN

Humble Yourself: A Sermon for 30 October 2011

Christ Church, St. Joseph, La.                                         

We just can’t seem to get away from those darn Pharisees and their sinful ways, can we?

At this point in our march through the lectionary for Year A, which obviously features the Gospel according to Matthew, it seems that Jesus has nothing better to do than to argue with and criticize the Pharisees.

In fact, this game of one-upmanship that Jesus always wins, gets even nastier. Soon we will hear Jesus say, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

So maybe it’s time to step back a bit and look at the larger picture. Maybe it is time to look at all of the agendas coming together in these stories.

There’s the agenda of the Pharisees, for sure, and it is to discredit Jesus. Then there’s Jesus’ agenda, which is to reform Judaism—often by turning upside down the most cherished tenets of the orthodox faith.

But then there’s the agenda of the Gospel writers, in this case Matthew. That’s the agenda we have the hardest time focusing on—and for good reason. We believe God inspired the Gospel writers. We believe what they wrote contains everything necessary to our own salvation.

And since our eternal lives depend on Holy Scripture, we sometimes have trouble scrutinizing it and considering the social and political contexts in which it was written. We especially have trouble when it seems to mesh so nicely with our own human contexts, our own cultural and political perspectives and, yes, prejudices.

But every so often we need to step back and look at the larger picture, not only of the agendas coming together in Biblical stories, but how those agendas intersect with our own.

Let’s begin with Jesus. He was not a Christian. He was a Jew and a devout adherent to the Jewish faith. When he answered his Father’s call to begin his ministry, he went to a synagogue. Throughout his life he preached and taught in synagogues.

Yes, Jesus was very critical of the religious leadership of his day. He was critical of the Sadduccees, who were the temple priests. He was critical of the scribes and Pharisees, who were learned and devout lay people who studied the Hebrew Scriptures and practiced the Hebrew laws contained therein. The Pharisees especially were known for their strict and diligent observance of Torah, which they understood to be God’s law.

But Jesus’ critique of Judaism and its leadership should first of all be understood as internal criticism, not criticism from without. He never left the Jewish faith. He was crucified as a Jew by the Roman state, with the consent and encouragement of the most powerful religious leaders of his day.

Moreover, Jesus’ criticism was part of a long tradition of internal criticism practiced by Judaism. That’s why so many saw him as the latest in a long string of prophets who had called the Israelites back to the faith over the centuries.

Little wonder then that the Pharisees mistrusted and questioned Jesus! They were the defenders of the traditional faith. He was the radical seeking to reform the faith.

Our Holy Gospels were written some 50 to 70 years later. That is, 50 to 70 years after Jesus spoke out against the hypocrisy and arrogance of some of the leaders of his faith.

And why then, you might ask? Because that is when the followers of Jesus were busy separating themselves from Judaism and forming a new religion, namely Christianity.

Little wonder then that the Gospel writers, carrying out the crucial work of creating a new faith identity and a new religious structure, tend to cast the Pharisees in a negative light and to show Jesus handily defeating them at every turn. And because the Gospel writers disliked the Pharisees, we think we should too. 

But external criticism is very different from internal criticism, and we know that Christian dislike for Jews has produced centuries of anti-Semitic prejudice and even violence. The words of Jesus, criticizing some of the religious leaders of his time, have been put to a use Jesus himself abhorred.

And that brings us full circle. In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus teaches not only that hypocrisy and self-righteousness are wrong, but that we need look no further than within our own ranks for examples (Matthew 23:1-12, NRSV).

I am reminded once again of contemporary politics, and specifically of recent episodes of hate-filled behavior at political rallies and forums. Things like shouts of “Let him die” when discussion turned to the problem of people who need major medical care but have no insurance.

Things like booing a gay soldier serving in Iraq when he asked a question about his own government’s policy toward him. Things like cheering at a prideful claim by a candidate that he has presided over more than 200 executions.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these incidents is that the candidates, many of whom openly stand on their Christian credentials as a campaign strategy, did not speak out against or even seek to distance themselves from the hate-filled outbursts.

Love God, and your neighbor as yourself, Jesus said, just last Sunday.
   

Jesus Washing the Feet of His Disciples, by Michal Splho

But of course, we needn’t leave our own homes and communities to find examples of the problem Jesus addresses in today’s lesson. Most of us at least some of the time fall for the illusion of self-reliance and indulge in feelings of moral superiority.

We have been at least somewhat successful in making the social and economic system work for us. We go to church on Sunday, put our offering in the plate and thank God for our many blessings, even though we are quite sure we earned that new car or lovely home or promotion or rise in stock prices or… whatever.

And that becomes a burden we tie up and lay on the shoulders of others, sure that if we did it, they can too. We don’t have to leave our own churches to find contempt for the poor, even though Jesus calls us to love and serve them as we would Jesus himself.

Humble yourself, Jesus says. The greatest among you will be your servant. He will soon demonstrate the point by getting down on his own knees and washing the feet of his disciples as they share their last meal together. And finally, he will go to the cross, in humility and for love of us, his neighbor.

AMEN

Love in a Time of Partisanship: A Sermon for 23 October 2011

St. Luke's Chapel, Grambling, La.

In last Sunday’s Gospel lesson, the Pharisees had sent their disciples to try to trap Jesus in what he said. They asked him a question about taxes, a contentious issue then as it is now. Surely a question about taxes would get Jesus into trouble with somebody, no matter how he answered it!

Today seems to be “pop quiz day.” The Pharisees seek to “test” Jesus, and, again, they pick an ideal topic: The Law (Matthew 22:34-44 NRSV). We can almost hear the wheels turning in their minds. A question about the law will surely trip up this peasant from Galilee!

Now when I announce a pop quiz in one of my classes, I am typically met with widespread moaning and groaning. But Jesus—ever on top of the situation—has a ready answer. It is succinct and clear, and reduces the complexity of the law to two truly memorable mandates. We’ll come back to those mandates shortly, but for a moment I want to consider further the Pharisees and what they are up to.

Barbara Crafton is an Episcopal priest who writes an online meditation (The Almost Daily eMo). Writing on today’s lesson, she suggests that we modern Christians tend to forget that the Gospels were written at a time of partisanship within Judaism.

That is, followers of Jesus were a “party” within Judaism and what they believed was deemed heresy by mainstream Jews. The Pharisees were leaders of the orthodox party. They studied Torah, God’s Law and covenant with the Jewish people. (The Sadducees were temple priests and a third party within Judaism, but I’m not going to say more about them this morning, lest we need a score card to keep track of things.)
                               

Simchat Torah

These parties within Judaism thoroughly mistrusted each other. Little wonder then that the Pharisees questioned Jesus! Likewise, little wonder that the Gospel writers, left to carry on the work of the followers-of-Jesus party after his death and resurrection, tend to cast the Pharisees in a negative light, and to show Jesus handily defeating them at every turn.

And because the Gospel writers disliked the Pharisees, we think we should too. 
 
But we are misguided in our dislike of the Pharisees. They are the forerunners, not only of rabbinic Judaism as we know it today, but of those men and women we call Biblical scholars who contribute so much to our understanding of Holy Scripture.

Moreover, Jesus was not the first to reduce the complexity of the law to a clear, concise statement of concern for one’s neighbor. A few decades before Jesus’ time of teaching and preaching, a rabbi by the name of Hillel was challenged by a would-be convert to Judaism to explain the law while standing on one foot.

It’s hard to say what the challenger’s motive might have been. Perhaps he hoped Rabbi Hillel would not be able to meet the challenge and he would then be justified in giving up on the project of becoming a believer. Or, perhaps he was genuinely tired of long, complicated explications and really needed a simple understanding of the faith he was interested in—one that could be given while standing on one foot!

Either way, Rabbi Hillel met the challenge. He immediately raised one foot off the ground and said, That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary. Go and study it.

So when the Pharisees test Jesus, he too is prepared with a standing-on-one-foot summary of the law. First he says, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. 

And we recognize that as a theme of Hebrew Scripture. Many places in what we call the Old Testament, the people of Israel are commanded to love and commit themselves fully and only to the one and only God, the God of their ancestors, the God who brought them out of bondage in Egypt.

But then Jesus ups the ante over Rabbi Hillel. He says, And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

In other words, where Rabbi Hillel says don’t be hateful toward your neighbor, Jesus says LOVE your neighbor, and not a little bit but just as much as you love yourself. Care as much about the wellbeing of your neighbor as you care about your own.

Now Jesus is, in fact, quoting a passage from Leviticus when he says love your neighbor as yourself, but the bulk of Torah is devoted to other things: Property laws to ensure fairness in society, holiness laws for keeping oneself pure, laws about how and where to worship God, and so forth.

So when Jesus makes “love your neighbor as yourself” the second most important commandment, he is taking a radical stand. And he is upping the ante over the standard teaching and practice of mainstream religion in his day.

Many people—not just the Jews of old but many people today—want to turn Holy Scripture into a rulebook that covers all sorts of things: Taxes, who can marry whom, what kind of government a country should have, what kind of economic system a society should have, which countries are justified in forcing their political and economic systems on others, and on and on, ad nauseum.

But Jesus gave us just two mandates in his 1-minute, standing-on-one-foot interpretation of all of Holy Scripture: Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

Pretty simple, huh? Straightforward, direct, no conditions to remember, no complicated formulas to memorize. Just… love God and your neighbor as yourself.

So… how is that working for us? How are we doing with this command to love unconditionally in our own time of partisanship, both within the church and in the larger society?
                 

My Team vs. Your Team

With a presidential election just around the corner, we hear daily from politicians who are quite certain, on the one hand, that God is behind their candidacy, their platform, their agenda. Yet in the next breath they are equally certain we can’t afford to provide health care to all, that educating all of our children equally well is too costly, that the Mexicans who pick our fruit and pluck our chickens ought to be summarily kicked out, if not shot dead on the spot. And they have a following—a wildly enthusiastic following—people who applaud when they say these things and boo when a gay soldier ready to die for their freedom says he’s tired of living in a closet.

Turns out this mandate to love—completely, unconditionally, in our own time of partisanship—is much easier to say and to preach than to live.

But remember that Jesus ultimately and finally upped the ante on his own words. Ultimately and finally, with his own death on the cross, he says loving God and your neighbor is not enough. Be willing to die for them as well.              

  AMEN

Image & Likeness: A Sermon for 16 October 2011

Christ Church, St. Joseph, La.

In today’s Gospel lesson (Matthew 22:15-22, NRSV), the Pharisees are once again up to no good. They’re still trying to trap Jesus in what he says. 

They have been playing this game for a while now. In fact, I Googled the question, “How many times did the Pharisees try to trap Jesus?” but apparently no one has thought to count them. At least Google didn’t come up with an answer!

On this particular occasion, they send their disciples, perhaps in the hope that the disciples will do better, perhaps just because they are tired of public embarrassment.

“The Herodians,” by the way, are followers of King Herod, who want more than to trap Jesus. They want to kill him. This Jesus of Nazareth is a serious threat to the seats of power, both the seat of religious power, as represented by the Pharisees, and the seat of political power, as represented by the Herodians.

So… the game in today’s story is entrapment, and this time the Pharisees try a question about—heaven help us—taxes. 
                                     

Making the Sign of the Cross

I wonder how many good Christians across this country and around the globe are taking the bait this very morning!

You see, I think what the Pharisees were really up to was trying to get Jesus “off message.” That is, the Good News Jesus proclaimed, the central message he preached over and over again, was so threatening and so troubling to the religious mainstream, that the Pharisees sought over and over again to get him to talk about something else—to go “off message.”

In today’s lesson, that something else is taxes, and it is excellent bait. Who doesn’t have an opinion about taxes? Then and now, everybody… has an opinion… about taxes!

The Roman tax referenced by this passage was particularly controversial. Some of the Hebrew people believed that, as a matter of practicality if nothing else, it simply should be paid. Others believed that to pay taxes to the Roman oppressor was an act of collaboration with the enemy.

And so the Pharisees, thinking they had posed a simple “yes or no” question, just  knew that whichever way Jesus answered the question, he was going to be in trouble with somebody.

Interestingly enough, many people today seem to think that Jesus actually answered the question. I’m guessing, in churches across the country and around the globe this morning, preachers are using this passage to endorse their particular political view about taxes.

Certainly, a few minutes of searching the Internet will produce serious commentary going both directions. Some say, yes, this passage supports the paying of taxes. Others say, no, this passage really says that taxes are of the world and of political systems, and that those who belong to God are obligated only to tithe or give their money to charity. One source I found even argued that this story was Jesus’ coded encouragement to the Israelites to refuse to cooperate with Rome.

But notice that the representatives of the Pharisees and the Herodians understood that Jesus had once again skillfully sidestepped their question. Rather than pounce on his answer, as they had hoped to be able to do, they turn and walked away in amazement. They had been outwitted. Jesus stayed “on message.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get Jesus to answer for us today the vexing question of taxes? Who should pay them, how much, etc. I certainly know how I wish Jesus would answer that question!

But when we humans co-opt passages of Holy Scripture in order to line them up behind, and in support of, our various cultural, social and political orientations and opinions, we are not only getting “off message,” we are taking the name of our Lord God in vain.

And this truly is one of the most troubling aspects of our politics today: That various and sundry politicians lay claim to having God behind their candidacy, their platform, their agenda.

So… Jesus deflects the trick question by pointing out the obvious—that coins minted by a government have symbols of governmental power imprinted on them—very often the image and likeness of a person of power within that government. Then he enigmatically suggests that whatever belongs to Caesar should be given back to Caesar.., leaving them and us to wonder what, in fact, belongs to Caesar: Every coin that bears his likeness? Only some? Perhaps none?

And isn’t it interesting that Jesus himself did not have a coin. He had to ask for one. But, of course, Jesus spent his short life teaching against materialism. He never owned the kind of property the tax was levied against.

It’s almost as if the whole subject is just plain distracting and tiresome to Jesus. He dispenses with the question then drives home once again his own message: Give to God the things that are God’s.

Who can hear this story—either ancient Hebrew or contemporary Christian—without hearing the words of Genesis echo in our heart and mind? We know that we are made in the image and likeness of God.
                    

Hands of God and Adam

                                      
And from Genesis through the New Testament, that message resounds: We are made in the image and likeness of God. We are God’s people and the sheep of his pasture. He abides in us so that we can abide in Him.

Unlike the identical stampings of symbols of power on coins, each of us is a unique person, yet each of us is made in the image and likeness of God.

Jesus stays “on message”: You belong to God, he reminds us. Give back to God what belongs to God.

Moreover, the image and likeness of God is not stamped on our surface. It is not skin color, or shape of the nose, or gender. Rather, the image and likeness of God is planted within us. We call it Holy Spirit, and it is that homing device that dwells within each of us and keeps us turned toward God.

Many people want to turn Holy Scripture into a rulebook that covers all sorts of things. Not just taxes, but who can marry whom and what kind of government a country should have and what kind of economic system a society should have and on and on, ad nauseum.

Jesus gave us just two, and they follow directly from the understanding that we belong to God. For when we love God, and our neighbors as ourselves, we are giving back to God.. that which came from God.. and belongs to God..

AMEN

 

Words and Wisdom: A Sermon for 22 August 2010

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

--Rudyard Kipling. 

I use that quote as a signature line that automatically prints at the bottom of my campus e-mail messages. I figure it is one more reinforcement for students of my role in their life at this time, which is to mark up their papers with copious amounts of red ink, to chastise them for choosing weak words, ungrammatical words, imprecise words, words that obfuscate rather than clarify… in the papers they write.

So important are words to humankind that a quick Google-search of the Internet will yield hundreds of “quotes about words.” Here are a few:

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

--James Earle Jones

The two most misused words in the entire English vocabulary are love and friendship.

--Larry Flynt, publisher of sex magazines, who probably contributed to their misuse

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

--Voltaire, who surely had politicians in mind when he said it.

Even more famously, Voltaire also said: I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. That one, it seems to me, is on the endangered quotes list in today’s political climate of gross exaggeration and shrill accusation.

And finally, the Chinese proverb, A bad word whispered will echo a hundred miles. Who among us has never spoken that “bad word” we desperately wish we could take back?

Turning to our Old Testament lesson for today, we find Holy Scripture not only affirming the importance of words, but also telling us very clearly that sometimes our words come from God.

The prophet Jeremiah (1:4-10, NRSV) seems to have experienced in some physical way the Lord putting words in his mouth. How incredible! It is hard for me to imagine being able to speak at all… after experiencing so directly the touch of God.

What a powerful story for Christians called to testify to the Good News of Jesus the Christ. We often feel inexperienced and unworthy of the part. But if we take God’s words to Jeremiah seriously, that’s not an excuse. Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you. Who can argue with that?

In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus heals, as he often does, first by speaking the words: You are free, he says to the woman (Luke 13:10-17, NRSV). In other stories, his healing words are Your sins are forgiven and Your faith has made you whole.

The letter to the Hebrews often challenges me with the complexity of its words and phrases, and I can’t begin to unpack today’s entire passage. But I will draw your attention to this amazing and powerful word and sound picture of Judgment Day.

The one who is speaking, whom we should not refuse, is surely God. In times past, God spoke on earth through the prophets, and those voices shook the earth. But once again, God will speak and shake not only earth but also heaven, and shake and shake… until all that is of the earth is shaken away and what remains is only God’s kingdom, the kingdom that cannot be shaken. (Hebrews 12:18-29, NRSV)

Those of you who took the Handel’s Messiah class last year during Advent and Lent will recall that stunning passage based on a Psalm in which God’s voice is represented in words as music: shake, shake, shake sings the bass, reinforced by the agitated sound of the entire string section of the orchestra.

These lessons evoke questions that have haunted me most of my adult life:
    How do we know which words that we find in our hearts and minds, on our tongues, and in our text messages, e-mail, and so forth, are from God?
    How do we know they are not from one of the other powerful and constant influences on our oh-so-human ways of thinking and speaking?
    How often, before we speak or write, do we even ask the question, Are these words from God? Or from my own social, cultural and political point of view?

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann put this very concern into eloquent words. Praying at the beginning of one of his Bible study workshops, he thanks God for the joy of words given us.

But then he acknowledges that we are also subject to other influences: Our own rich imaginations, cowardice, arrogance. We are, on most days, Brueggemann prays, a hard mix of true prophet and wayward voice.

We are a literate people. Our days are filled with words: printed and spoken, in books, newspapers, magazines, online, radio and television, and on our ever-present smart phones, iPads and laptops. Witness the ease with which I located hundreds of quotes about words… from which to pick and choose the ones that served my purposes this morning.

I am especially concerned about the quality of our political discourse today. It seems that no idea or project is worthy of debate on its own terms. Rather, truth and reality must be exaggerated and distorted in order to be worthy of our support or opposition.

And so an Islamic community center that includes prayer space at 51 Park Place in Lower Manhattan becomes “the Ground Zero Mosque” if you’re against it, and if you’re for it, a mere basketball court and culinary school that nevertheless stands for the entire principle of religious freedom in the U.S.

Oh, to know with certainty when the words on our tongues are those of true prophet and not wayward voice!

Of course, Jesus does offer us help with this problem. In another passage in Luke (20:15, NRSV), he promises his disciples, I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand.

We humans are social, cultural and political beings. We cannot and should not check who we are, and the points of view each of us brings to public debate, at the door of our common and communal lives.

But we must, if we are to love God and our neighbor as ourselves, choose our words prayerfully and thoughtfully—not just when we are in church, but in all aspects of our lives. We must use our words, not to bludgeon each other or those we perceive as our enemies, but as the eloquent, precise tools of communication they are intended to be.

Dare I suggest that our words can be the outward and visible sign of that one, ultimate Word spoken by God—namely Jesus the Christ—dwelling within.

Today my prayer is, “Fewer words, Lord, but greater wisdom in discerning which are from you and how we might use them to testify to your most holy name.”

AMEN.

                                                 

Jesus the Plumb Line: A Sermon for 11 July 2010

When I was a kid, family vacations consisted of the occasional drive to Ohio to visit my father’s family. That was before Interstate 80 had been built, and so the journey included passing through Chicago.

My father was always looking for educational opportunities for his children, and so we typically spent a day on the way to Ohio at one or more of Chicago’s amazing museums. It was at the Museum of Science & Industry that we encountered the giant Foucault pendulum, swinging ever so softly and silently, from a domed ceiling high over our heads.

Foucault pendulum, Pantheon, Paris.

A Foucault pendulum is, of course, a plumb line. It is a weight on a string that obeys the law of gravity by hanging straight down— regardless of what you hang it from. Or, in the case of the one in Chicago, it is—as I recall—a huge brass plumb bob shaped like a child’s top, suspended from the center of the dome on a cable.

And it moves because the earth moves! In other words, the plumb line must obey the laws of gravity and always hang straight down. But because the earth is not a perfect sphere, and because it moves—rotating on its axis as it traces its trajectory around the sun—the ceiling of that building is also moving, and the plumb bob must constantly adjust it’s position in order to obey the law of gravity and hang straight down.

And so it gently swings, translating the earth’s movement into a highly regular, beautifully precise pattern of movement—on a scale that the human eye can actually see. (Click on the link below the picture to see an animated drawing of the pendulum's movement.)

In other words, we know this planet we call home is, in fact, spinning and hurtling through space at an alarming speed. Yet we detect none of that. It is beyond the capacity of our human senses, our human perspective, our human experience.

But the giant plumb line brings it down to earth. A Foucault pendulum scales it down, transforms it, so that we mere mortals can in fact experience, perceive, see… the very rotation of the earth itself.

How much of that did I understand as a child, standing in that museum looking at a Foucault pendulum? I don’t know. Probably not much. But I do remember awe and wonderment.

And, in striking contrast to today’s Old Testament story, I remember it as a reassuring experience rather than a threatening one. Of course, plumb lines have more than one use. They are a builder’s tool for keeping things straight and upright, and a similar kind of discipline appears to be on God’s mind in this conversation with Amos.

“Look, I am not going to continue to look the other way,” God says. “In fact, I’m going to put myself right there in the midst of my people Israel. I’m going to be a plumb line showing how crooked they really are. And, by the way, their crookedness is going to get them into all kinds of trouble. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

So.., how do we reconcile these contrasting images of a plumb line? Is it an eloquent translation of God’s creation into terms humans can comprehend, or a harsh discipline that ensures mortal failure? Is it a reminder of the order of the universe, or a measure of the chaos humans inevitably create?

I would say it is “both and”—both eloquent and harsh, both about order and about chaos, both reassuring—for it is evidence that God is among us, and frightening—for it shows how utterly unworthy of God’s presence we are.

And if that sounds a bit like Jesus.., well, you’re with me all the way! And today’s lesson from Luke is a perfect example of Jesus being a plumb line.

It begins with the interaction between Jesus and the lawyer, and the lawyer is up to nothing less than entrapment. He knows perfectly well that some of Jesus’ teachings and practices have been rather unorthodox, and so he asks a question to which everyone present knows the “right” answer, the Scriptural answer.

It is a question designed to make the asker look pious, even as he is hoping that Jesus will go out on a limb that he can then chop off. “What must I do to be certain I’ll go to heaven,” he asks.

But Jesus doesn’t rise to the bait, nor does he strike back. Rather, he invites the lawyer to share the Scriptural answer everyone knows, and the lawyer obliges: “Love the Lord your God.., and your neighbor as yourself.”

Ask a simple question, and get a simple answer! Standing there with egg on his face, the lawyer tries again. Surely he can engage Jesus in a face-saving debate if he asks him a truly legal question! “Who is my neighbor?” he says.

And so Jesus tells the story that is probably the most familiar one of the whole Bible, the story that we can’t hear anymore because we’ve heard it so often. So let me try to make it a bit strange so that you can hear it again for the first time.

I’m guessing you are already thinking about the guy in the ditch, the victim of the beating. And maybe you’re wondering if you would “measure up” in the sense of being the one to help the victim as the Samaritan did.

And that’s fine. That’s part of the point. But now shift your attention from the guy in the ditch… to the Samaritan. Notice that Luke does not say he’s a “good” Samaritan. Luke just says he’s a Samaritan. WE added the “good,” and I suspect it has the same meaning as when someone tells a demeaning joke and then follows it quickly with, “I’m really not a bigot. One of my best friends is…” black or Asian or gay or whatever the particular category of people was slurred by the joke.

In other words, we’re quite willing to recognize “good” examples, exceptions to the rule, of categories of people we look down on. So get rid of the Samaritan because Samaritans don’t mean anything to us today, and put in his place a representative of the group of people you fear the most, like the least, resent the most, whatever: An illegal immigrant, perhaps? A smelly street person? Someone who deviates from sex or gender norms? A Muslim?

Put in the story the last person in the world you would expect mercy from, the last person in the world you would think capable of the act of mercy at the center of the story.., and now ask yourself, Am I willing to see that person as my neighbor and my equal in the eyes of God?

That’s the kind of plumb line Jesus is: God among us, saying over and over again, in every possible way: We are all God’s children. We are all in this together. Not one of you is any better than anyone else. Not one of you is loved by me any more or any less than anyone else. Stand by me. Walk with me. Dine with me. And all will be well. And you will never again have to ask, “Who is my neighbor?”

AMEN.