Matthew 22:15-22
Yr A, 29 Ordinary, October 16, 2011
Every once in a while, what we hear being discussed in the papers and on TV bumps right up against a passage in the Bible that seems to be addressing the same issue. This is one of those times—the issue is paying taxes, and the question is: “What is the right balance to strike between our obligation to the state, and our obligation to God?”
But before we plunge down that path into the woods, it is important to take a couple of side treks. First, let’s seek to understand the nature of the issue in Jesus’ day. Briefly, there were two factions. On the one hand were the Herodians, followers of the Roman-appointed leader, Herod Antipas, who the authorities named “King of the Jews”. The Jews were forced to use a special coin upon which appeared his image and the inscription, “the divine Caesar”. The Pharisees saw the use of this coin as a violation of both the first and the second commandment. The Herodians saw refusing to use the coin as kin to sedition against the Roman Empire.
There is one more side trek that is important to take before we begin to talk about the relevance this passage may have for today. Part of both the insistence and the resistance in ancient Palestine around this issue came from the fact that the Jews were being forced to take part in the same economic, political and military system of government that was being forced on them from the outside. It wasn’t just a question of whether to violate the first and second commandment for them, it was also a question of whether to support those who occupied their country and controlled their resources by force.
Most people today, even those who are most adamantly against taxes, would not suggest that our situation is the same as that of first century Palestine. Nonetheless, though there was little that the two sides, the Herodians and the Pharisees, would have agreed on, they did come together for this:
To seek to entrap an upstart religious leader named Jesus, whose following both sides deemed threatening to their own base of power.
“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” They teamed up and sent “disciples” to Jesus to ask him this because they knew it was a “lose-lose” situation for him. If he affirmed the need to pay taxes, he was encouraging others to violate the Word of God, and if he rejected the need to pay taxes, he was rebelling against the powers that be. Either answer could bring him a death sentence.
So our Lord gave neither answer. Instead, after getting them to name the person and title on the coin, he said these famous words, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar and unto God the things that are God’s”. Such a simple phrase, but we have been probing its depths for meaning, and taking sides, ever since.
In our discussion of this phrase there are several logical fallacies we might make. The first is to take either one of the sides claiming that is (really) what Jesus did. For no matter how you look at it, Jesus did not coyly suggest that we ought to NOT pay taxes—the word translated as “render” (apodate) means not just to give, but to give what is due by obligation. Whether they liked it or not, the people living in Palestine—no matter what their religion or position—benefited from what Caesar had done for them. In addition to the roads, buildings, water systems, sewage systems and security that Rome had provide the city and its citizens; the Romans had also rebuilt the temple to a magnificence not seen for centuries before their occupation. It was not for Jesus a question of whether to pay taxes for all this, but how to maintain ones obligation to God as well as Rome.
Neither did Jesus say that no obligation was owed to God. By asking his questioners to point out the obvious blasphemy on the coin first before giving them his answer, he underscored the brokenness and idolatry of the Roman/Jewish alliance that then ruled Palestine. He makes no excuses for this, and he is not shy to suggest that “something was wrong in the state of Denmark”. Godly people ever since have always found a way to hold the state accountable while at the same time anchoring that accountability to faith in God.
Another logical fallacy is much more prevalent in our society today, I think. It is the idea that obligation is always a matter of personal choice. Jesus reminded people that they are obligated to both church and state (in the modern parlance), but he did not say—each of you may now personally decide if and how you will pay your tithe and/or your taxes. Obligation, duty, in the first century was not an individual matter—it was a preference for a lifestyle of civic responsibility within a society where duty and honor were finite commodities, not personal choices. Not everyone had to be honorable—take Jesus’ hero John the Baptist for instance. He did almost nothing “honorable” according to his society. He fled the city, flaunted the faith, proclaimed God’s independence from the structures of temple and tradition, and called everyone to accountability regardless of their place or station in society. Yet, key to understanding John and Jesus love of John is this—John did all of this because he believed God wanted society to change, not because he chose to live in the desert and eat bugs.
So if our obligation to church and state is not personal, then what else might it be? In some countries, and for a long time, the obligation to church and state was the same. In America, we rejected this idea—at least in principal if not always in fact. Debates still rage over how exactly to live out the constitutional provision for the separation of church and state. Such questions are still being argued, but for the most part, we continue to reject the idea that God smiles on our every action as a nation, though we try our best to still allow faith to inform who we are as a people. But Jesus response can not be used to justify our greatest hope that we are “one nation under God”, for he clearly says that loyalty to nation is not the same as loyalty to God.
The theologian Jurgen Moltmann reminds us that obligation to God must always look to the context of the day and age in which a Christian lives. In his words, “The image of Christ and the image of the church also always reflect the ‘spirit of the age’, the political and economic circumstances, and the cultural and social conditions, in which the churches are living.” (Moltmann, The Church and the Power of the Spirit, 66-67). Hence, we direct our consciousness toward Christ, the object of our faith, but how that looks depends on the situation.
An example of changing situations that change obligations
My wife wrote this in her doctoral dissertation: “To whom we belong and in whose name we gather, is intimately connected with who we are, what we do and how we do it” (Wilson, p.24). We can best understand Jesus answer to those who would trip him up by keeping this idea in the background.
Our loyalty and obligation is not ultimately tied to the powers and principalities of this world, whether those powers share a national identity or a religious one. Our ultimate obligation is to the God of Hope, the cross of Christ, to whom we belong and in whose name we gather. We are the followers of Christ and what we do, whether it is come to church on a Sunday morning or pay taxes on April 15th, is motivated by our belief that when we do it in Christ’s name, it is an act that furthers the Kingdom of God. In God is our hope, and in this is God’s hope: that we do whatever we do in Christ’s name, believing in the phrase he taught us: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”.
Monday, October 17, 2011
“Choosing Relationship” (Oct-9 2011)
“Choosing Relationship”
Exodus 32:1-14; Matthew 22:1-14 (golden calf, wedding feast)
October 9, 2011; Yr A, 28
Yuck! Who wants to hear this on a beautiful October Sunday morning? God saying, “Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them” (Ex 32:10). Jesus telling us a story where a King’s emissaries were murdered by those who didn’t want to come to his party, so he sent troops and burned their city! Then, some poor shmoe is tied up and tossed in the dumpster, even though he did come to the party, just because he wore the wrong clothes. Talk about fashion police having too much power….
What are we supposed to do with this? The imagery is so vivid in these two passages that some have chosen to use them as proof texts that there is a Hell complete with “outer darkness”, “weeping and gnashing of teeth”, destruction and flames and God’s “fierce wrath”. OK, fair enough. Those words are there, but I always thought that there was something a little deeper for us to chew on here than just a justification for Halloween 2.
And I don’t think that it is a matter of just coming upon a partial glass of scriptural water and choosing to see it as either half-full or half-empty. No, both of these passages in very different ways begin with a carrot, not a stick. Both are invitations to choose relationship.
Although a little diced up, the Exodus passage recounts the time that Moses is delayed coming down from the mountain. In our popularized version of the story, he brings the law down to the people and finds them reveling in drunkenness and debauchery. This is not actually what is written in the Bible. Instead, what we find is a group of scared and deflated refugees who feel that they have lost their war chief and leader, Moses. They turn to the next in line, his brother Aaron, to help them make sense of what has been happening to them, especially now that they feel lost and abandoned. What Aaron leads them to do, that is melt down their gold jewelry to make a golden calf to worship, is as pitiful as it is idolatrous.
When you think about it, most of our idolatry is pitiful. Even though we seldom worship golden calves anymore, we do manage to shift our worry and our hope onto inanimate objects, ideologies or activities. We do choose to have a better relationship with, say our IPod or our Television set, than we do with our God. We plan, spend and “fire ourselves up” for a football game. We party hearty when our team wins and we feel morose for days when they don’t. Why do such objects and activities captivate us so?
Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt in the name of the Creator of the Universe. They were rescued from the most powerful army on earth at the time, and they were invited to be the chosen family of God! There seems to be little logic as to how or why such a fantastic invitation would ever be turned down, let alone replaced by a cow made out of earrings and nose rings. Yet, that is what they chose instead.
Most of us in this sanctuary probably find it hard to relate to being rescued from oppression or the crushing wheels of a war chariot—but our invitation to belong to the family of God is just as fantastic as the one the ancient Hebrews received. And so our choice to choose other pursuits over God is just as illogical, and pathetic, even if it is, at the same time, so easy to do.
Janine and bought an IPad a couple of weeks ago. (The death this past week of Steve Jobs, its inventor, is a true loss. He was a gentle genius by all accounts, and he certainly changed the entire world with his inventions).
Just Friday night, I read a book, checked the weather, looked at the day’s news, and listened to music on this amazing little device. It was great fun, and I am sure that God was enjoying my enjoying it too. The problem is that, I spent three hours doing all this. As a result, this sermon didn’t get typed until yesterday. Even that is OK, but by the time I had no more time—I had a serious attitude:
“God,” I half-jokingly said, “I don’t want to be a preacher anymore, at least not today. I’d rather spend some more time playing with our new IPad”. How easy it is to take all the gold that something like an IPad offers us, and turn it into our own latter-day version of the beloved Golden Calf.
The parable of the kingdom that Jesus tells is even harsher than the story from Exodus, in my opinion. I think that is the case because it is a story, and stories can afford to be more hyperbolic and rhetorical than can the account of actual historical events. Parables don’t attempt to contain every point of view on all the truth. They make a point, sometimes rather harshly, and then they move on.
The point of this story is not that God is all about demanding people come to him or be cast into Hell; no, the point of the parable is that “there once was a King” who was both demanding and powerful, and people ignored the invitation to his son’s wedding banquet at their own peril. Further, those who ignored it and abused those who brought the invitation were replaced by others the King wanted to come. We are left at the end of the parable with a question: “Will you choose relationship to God, or not?”
It is a rather remarkable thing, when you think about it, that creatures like us have such a choice to begin with. The psalmist writes, “Who are we Lord, that you should even consider us; yet, you have made us higher than the angels!”
Animal shows always bring this home to me. If you have seen the series, “Planet Earth”, then you know just how wonderful our photographers have now gotten at capturing God’s creation. The photography and cinematography alone can leave you feeling very small in your easy chair. You have a tiny black remote control, but the Taiga Forest stretches across 2/3’rds of the world’s latitude lines, and that expanse doesn’t even start until you go across the 3000 miles of ice that lays to the south of the North Pole!
The one thing I always get from “Planet Earth” and similar shows is how many things are eaten by other things. The other day I watched as Cicada’s swarmed all over a Canadian forest and were consumed by birds, frogs, squirrels, skunks, raccoons, and even a tiny little super-cute chipmunk. They didn’t have a choice to be in relationship with each other, or (I assume) with their Creator either. What makes us more important than a cicada? The only answer of course is that God does. God makes us so much more important that God teaches us how to be in relationship with Him, and with nature, and with each other. Praise Be to God! (That I’m not a cicada).
And yet, like those who followed Moses out of Egypt and like those who made light of the King’s invitation and “went away, one to his farm, another to his business” because for them capital was their King, we also repeatedly turn down God’s invitation. The sounds of our pursuits and parallel priorities drown out the world just as completely as the sawing screech of the cicadas in summer.
“I would love to choose relationship with God”, but I have things to do first. Sunday morning will always be there, but my kids won’t.”
“Of course I believe in God, but lately I’ve been searching, and the questions it has led me to have become more important to me than staying in relationship with God, even through the doubt. I’ve lost my Moses, and so I’m turning to something more tangible”.
If you have heard these same kinds of excused on your lips, welcome to the club. I understand the modern Dads and Moms in our culture have plenty of other Sunday activities that they deem important to take their children to. I’ve been there, and I am sure that if I had not had to work on Sundays myself for most of my life, I would have faced the same dilemma.
And I hope that by now, you all know me well enough to understand that I am the last one who would ever put down those who search for truth.
The key to answering the Gospel’s call to us today is this: Take heart and do not be discouraged, afraid or too distracted by the world’s allure—God, the Creator of the Universe, invites you and I to choose relationship,--with Jesus Christ, with nature and with one another. And if you still wonder what it means to choose relationship, then listen again to the closing words of Paul to the Philippi church:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Exodus 32:1-14; Matthew 22:1-14 (golden calf, wedding feast)
October 9, 2011; Yr A, 28
Yuck! Who wants to hear this on a beautiful October Sunday morning? God saying, “Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them” (Ex 32:10). Jesus telling us a story where a King’s emissaries were murdered by those who didn’t want to come to his party, so he sent troops and burned their city! Then, some poor shmoe is tied up and tossed in the dumpster, even though he did come to the party, just because he wore the wrong clothes. Talk about fashion police having too much power….
What are we supposed to do with this? The imagery is so vivid in these two passages that some have chosen to use them as proof texts that there is a Hell complete with “outer darkness”, “weeping and gnashing of teeth”, destruction and flames and God’s “fierce wrath”. OK, fair enough. Those words are there, but I always thought that there was something a little deeper for us to chew on here than just a justification for Halloween 2.
And I don’t think that it is a matter of just coming upon a partial glass of scriptural water and choosing to see it as either half-full or half-empty. No, both of these passages in very different ways begin with a carrot, not a stick. Both are invitations to choose relationship.
Although a little diced up, the Exodus passage recounts the time that Moses is delayed coming down from the mountain. In our popularized version of the story, he brings the law down to the people and finds them reveling in drunkenness and debauchery. This is not actually what is written in the Bible. Instead, what we find is a group of scared and deflated refugees who feel that they have lost their war chief and leader, Moses. They turn to the next in line, his brother Aaron, to help them make sense of what has been happening to them, especially now that they feel lost and abandoned. What Aaron leads them to do, that is melt down their gold jewelry to make a golden calf to worship, is as pitiful as it is idolatrous.
When you think about it, most of our idolatry is pitiful. Even though we seldom worship golden calves anymore, we do manage to shift our worry and our hope onto inanimate objects, ideologies or activities. We do choose to have a better relationship with, say our IPod or our Television set, than we do with our God. We plan, spend and “fire ourselves up” for a football game. We party hearty when our team wins and we feel morose for days when they don’t. Why do such objects and activities captivate us so?
Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt in the name of the Creator of the Universe. They were rescued from the most powerful army on earth at the time, and they were invited to be the chosen family of God! There seems to be little logic as to how or why such a fantastic invitation would ever be turned down, let alone replaced by a cow made out of earrings and nose rings. Yet, that is what they chose instead.
Most of us in this sanctuary probably find it hard to relate to being rescued from oppression or the crushing wheels of a war chariot—but our invitation to belong to the family of God is just as fantastic as the one the ancient Hebrews received. And so our choice to choose other pursuits over God is just as illogical, and pathetic, even if it is, at the same time, so easy to do.
Janine and bought an IPad a couple of weeks ago. (The death this past week of Steve Jobs, its inventor, is a true loss. He was a gentle genius by all accounts, and he certainly changed the entire world with his inventions).
Just Friday night, I read a book, checked the weather, looked at the day’s news, and listened to music on this amazing little device. It was great fun, and I am sure that God was enjoying my enjoying it too. The problem is that, I spent three hours doing all this. As a result, this sermon didn’t get typed until yesterday. Even that is OK, but by the time I had no more time—I had a serious attitude:
“God,” I half-jokingly said, “I don’t want to be a preacher anymore, at least not today. I’d rather spend some more time playing with our new IPad”. How easy it is to take all the gold that something like an IPad offers us, and turn it into our own latter-day version of the beloved Golden Calf.
The parable of the kingdom that Jesus tells is even harsher than the story from Exodus, in my opinion. I think that is the case because it is a story, and stories can afford to be more hyperbolic and rhetorical than can the account of actual historical events. Parables don’t attempt to contain every point of view on all the truth. They make a point, sometimes rather harshly, and then they move on.
The point of this story is not that God is all about demanding people come to him or be cast into Hell; no, the point of the parable is that “there once was a King” who was both demanding and powerful, and people ignored the invitation to his son’s wedding banquet at their own peril. Further, those who ignored it and abused those who brought the invitation were replaced by others the King wanted to come. We are left at the end of the parable with a question: “Will you choose relationship to God, or not?”
It is a rather remarkable thing, when you think about it, that creatures like us have such a choice to begin with. The psalmist writes, “Who are we Lord, that you should even consider us; yet, you have made us higher than the angels!”
Animal shows always bring this home to me. If you have seen the series, “Planet Earth”, then you know just how wonderful our photographers have now gotten at capturing God’s creation. The photography and cinematography alone can leave you feeling very small in your easy chair. You have a tiny black remote control, but the Taiga Forest stretches across 2/3’rds of the world’s latitude lines, and that expanse doesn’t even start until you go across the 3000 miles of ice that lays to the south of the North Pole!
The one thing I always get from “Planet Earth” and similar shows is how many things are eaten by other things. The other day I watched as Cicada’s swarmed all over a Canadian forest and were consumed by birds, frogs, squirrels, skunks, raccoons, and even a tiny little super-cute chipmunk. They didn’t have a choice to be in relationship with each other, or (I assume) with their Creator either. What makes us more important than a cicada? The only answer of course is that God does. God makes us so much more important that God teaches us how to be in relationship with Him, and with nature, and with each other. Praise Be to God! (That I’m not a cicada).
And yet, like those who followed Moses out of Egypt and like those who made light of the King’s invitation and “went away, one to his farm, another to his business” because for them capital was their King, we also repeatedly turn down God’s invitation. The sounds of our pursuits and parallel priorities drown out the world just as completely as the sawing screech of the cicadas in summer.
“I would love to choose relationship with God”, but I have things to do first. Sunday morning will always be there, but my kids won’t.”
“Of course I believe in God, but lately I’ve been searching, and the questions it has led me to have become more important to me than staying in relationship with God, even through the doubt. I’ve lost my Moses, and so I’m turning to something more tangible”.
If you have heard these same kinds of excused on your lips, welcome to the club. I understand the modern Dads and Moms in our culture have plenty of other Sunday activities that they deem important to take their children to. I’ve been there, and I am sure that if I had not had to work on Sundays myself for most of my life, I would have faced the same dilemma.
And I hope that by now, you all know me well enough to understand that I am the last one who would ever put down those who search for truth.
The key to answering the Gospel’s call to us today is this: Take heart and do not be discouraged, afraid or too distracted by the world’s allure—God, the Creator of the Universe, invites you and I to choose relationship,--with Jesus Christ, with nature and with one another. And if you still wonder what it means to choose relationship, then listen again to the closing words of Paul to the Philippi church:
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Special Meeting - Wednesday Oct 5th. 7-8PM
"Shared New Visions" - A continuation of the discernment meeting from earlier in the year.
“Tent Posts, the World Over”
“Tent Posts, the World Over”
Exodus, the Ten Words
World Communion Sunday,
October 2, 2011
When we think of today’s story, it is difficult to separate what comes to our mind from the depictions of two stone tablets that we often see now scattered around public court house lawns and squares. For all the controversy that has swirled around such displays, we have to remember that what happened on the top of that mountain all those millennia ago was much, much more than just the bringing down of moral precepts. It was Moses sharing the word of God with humanity.
The Ten Commandments are not just laws carved into cold stone, they are the living word of God. The Ten Commandments are an essential part of the Judeo-Christian faith that cannot be domesticated. They represent what God has spoken to us all, and because God still speaks to us, we have to learn to concentrate not on the Ten Words alone, but upon how it is that we live by them.
A few years ago, my entire family met up at a beautiful State Park in the Ozark Mountains. Ben, my step-son, was newly married and with a new baby. He and his family arrive last, but they were so excited to get there and set up camp beside the other portions of the clan. As they got out their tent and laid out the canvas, they noticed something. Neither he nor his wife had remembered to bring the tent poles. What good is a tent without its poles?
Well, speaking as a scout, I can tell you that it is not entirely a loss. At the very least, a camper can wrap the canvas around them or cover up their gear if it starts to rain. A slightly cleverer person might even find a way to fashion new poles from the saplings around the camp, or figure out a way to rig a ridge pole between to tree trunks and throw the tent over that for some shelter. But the thing is, the tent will never be able to do what it’s advertized to do, without the poles. BB Taylor has suggested that the 10 C’s are like the tent poles of the faith. Our faith can shelter us from harm without them, but we do so much better if we have them up in our lives.
Now this isn’t to say that having them in place is easy or that it is all we need to do. The 10C’s are the Word of God, and they cannot be domesticated. Just putting a poster up out on the front lawn with the 10 C’s on it is nothing magic. Insuring that the courthouse has a set mounted to the lobby wall is not magic either. The Ten Commandments are not just words, they are the words of God.
I guess that’s why I never felt all that strongly about the arguments that are out there for putting them up. To me, the real proof of their power lies in the way we try our best to live them out. Even the most easily understood and seemingly self-explanatory of them (say Thou Shalt Not Kill) can be argued about. Does that mean we should abolish capital punishment, refuse to go to war, and maybe even refuse to kill animals in order to eat meat? Certainly, if all we do is put “Thou Shalt not Kill” up on the courthouse wall, it does not resolve any of these thornier questions of how to follow the law.
But most of all, it does not address the full impact of the fact that these are God’s words to us. Apart from God, laws have no ultimate meaning. And with God, through Jesus Christ, we have forgiveness for even the worst of our sins and our crimes against the law. Jesus wants us to know that it goes both ways: he tells us he did not come to abolish the law—the Ten Words of God brought down from Mt. Sinai still live on—but there is more. For Jesus goes on to say that he came to fulfill the law. The law is shaped by his forgiveness. Where once the law said simply, “Love the Lord with all your heart, your soul and your mind,” Jesus now adds, “and love your neighbor as yourself” and “Love your enemies” and “love others as I have loved you”.
In other words, the 10C’s are still the Word of God; but they are not all the words of God. With that in mind, we can stop and wonder, what are some of the other words from God that we hold dear? This past month we have been praying for some new words from God. We have addressed God, not just as individuals, but as a congregation, and asked God to strengthen our vision for who we are, to help us change where we can, to insist that we learn how to pray for and receive new words, new directions from the Divine. It is our sincere hope that those visions will become the pillars (or tent posts) of our personal and congregational faith.
But human nature being what it is, when those words come will we do with them what many so often do to the Ten Commandments? Will we try to domesticate those too? Let’s try out a for instance.
Let’s suppose that in the course of our prayers and discernment meetings, we come to the conclusion that our tradition of 3 hymns to every worship service deserves tent post status. It is funny to me that, no matter where I have gone to worship in the last 40 years of my life, every worship service contains three hymns. Imagine if we decided that this word from God should be placed outside on our sandwich board: We believe in the Ten Commandments and the Eleventh one too—Thou Shalt always worship with three hymns, not one more or any less.
It seems silly, of course, but it is possible that someone, at some point in time actually heard this as a word from God. We believe that God certainly influences the way we worship, so it is not impossible to conceive that one of our early Protestant preachers or laymen first heard this good word and put it into action. Now it is a tradition. As a tent post of the faith, 3 hymns in every service seems fairly non-controversial, right. But just last week, we violated the rule. We sang more than 3 hymns, and from the sounds of it, most of you really liked the change.
We are a people who are blessed by words from God. Many of the traditions of this church came about because at some point in our history, one of our Radnor ancestors first heard a word from God and started a mission or ministry. You all will know the stories better than I do. Who first brought liturgical colors into the church; who first decided it was ok to have these beautiful windows (I imagine that was controversial in the beginning because, Radnor doesn’t even have a steeple—Congregationalists were not very fond of such gaudy decorations). So who first proposed that we spend all this money on such extravagancies, and what reception did he/she receive?
At times in our congregational life we are called to change the way we approach the words of God, both those that come directly from scripture, like the Ten Commandments, and those that come into our hearts and minds from the Holy Spirit. The times change, and so does the way we are called to do Jesus ministry.
This is such a time again. For many of our neighbors, those who live up and down our streets and whom we are praying to “get to know better, church is simply not on their radar screen. Thursday night, I came in and about 14 little girls and women were practicing cheerleading in the basement. It was fantastic that we could offer them a warm, dry, safe place to do this. Delighted by all the activity, I asked one little girl what her name was.
“I’m Emily”, she said, “I am here for cheerleading”.
“I’m Pastor Matthew,” I replied as I bent over to shake her hand.
She smiled at me and, a little perplexed, said, “Well, what are you here for”?
It was funny, and very cute—but also just a little sad because I don’t honestly think that she knew what a Pastor was, or that she was in the basement of a church. As I looked around behind her I spied all the columns that held up the sanctuary above her head—very strong tent posts each one—and I realized that God was offering me a new word: “Here is an opportunity Pastor Matthew, what will you do with it?”
What will we do with it? We have a choice to either lament the loss of the way it used to be, or to find a way to recognize the changed community around us and embrace new ways of getting our faith out there on their radar screens.
It is only natural, part of growing in the faith and serving the world, that is constantly changing, just as our Lord told us to do.
Exodus, the Ten Words
World Communion Sunday,
October 2, 2011
When we think of today’s story, it is difficult to separate what comes to our mind from the depictions of two stone tablets that we often see now scattered around public court house lawns and squares. For all the controversy that has swirled around such displays, we have to remember that what happened on the top of that mountain all those millennia ago was much, much more than just the bringing down of moral precepts. It was Moses sharing the word of God with humanity.
The Ten Commandments are not just laws carved into cold stone, they are the living word of God. The Ten Commandments are an essential part of the Judeo-Christian faith that cannot be domesticated. They represent what God has spoken to us all, and because God still speaks to us, we have to learn to concentrate not on the Ten Words alone, but upon how it is that we live by them.
A few years ago, my entire family met up at a beautiful State Park in the Ozark Mountains. Ben, my step-son, was newly married and with a new baby. He and his family arrive last, but they were so excited to get there and set up camp beside the other portions of the clan. As they got out their tent and laid out the canvas, they noticed something. Neither he nor his wife had remembered to bring the tent poles. What good is a tent without its poles?
Well, speaking as a scout, I can tell you that it is not entirely a loss. At the very least, a camper can wrap the canvas around them or cover up their gear if it starts to rain. A slightly cleverer person might even find a way to fashion new poles from the saplings around the camp, or figure out a way to rig a ridge pole between to tree trunks and throw the tent over that for some shelter. But the thing is, the tent will never be able to do what it’s advertized to do, without the poles. BB Taylor has suggested that the 10 C’s are like the tent poles of the faith. Our faith can shelter us from harm without them, but we do so much better if we have them up in our lives.
Now this isn’t to say that having them in place is easy or that it is all we need to do. The 10C’s are the Word of God, and they cannot be domesticated. Just putting a poster up out on the front lawn with the 10 C’s on it is nothing magic. Insuring that the courthouse has a set mounted to the lobby wall is not magic either. The Ten Commandments are not just words, they are the words of God.
I guess that’s why I never felt all that strongly about the arguments that are out there for putting them up. To me, the real proof of their power lies in the way we try our best to live them out. Even the most easily understood and seemingly self-explanatory of them (say Thou Shalt Not Kill) can be argued about. Does that mean we should abolish capital punishment, refuse to go to war, and maybe even refuse to kill animals in order to eat meat? Certainly, if all we do is put “Thou Shalt not Kill” up on the courthouse wall, it does not resolve any of these thornier questions of how to follow the law.
But most of all, it does not address the full impact of the fact that these are God’s words to us. Apart from God, laws have no ultimate meaning. And with God, through Jesus Christ, we have forgiveness for even the worst of our sins and our crimes against the law. Jesus wants us to know that it goes both ways: he tells us he did not come to abolish the law—the Ten Words of God brought down from Mt. Sinai still live on—but there is more. For Jesus goes on to say that he came to fulfill the law. The law is shaped by his forgiveness. Where once the law said simply, “Love the Lord with all your heart, your soul and your mind,” Jesus now adds, “and love your neighbor as yourself” and “Love your enemies” and “love others as I have loved you”.
In other words, the 10C’s are still the Word of God; but they are not all the words of God. With that in mind, we can stop and wonder, what are some of the other words from God that we hold dear? This past month we have been praying for some new words from God. We have addressed God, not just as individuals, but as a congregation, and asked God to strengthen our vision for who we are, to help us change where we can, to insist that we learn how to pray for and receive new words, new directions from the Divine. It is our sincere hope that those visions will become the pillars (or tent posts) of our personal and congregational faith.
But human nature being what it is, when those words come will we do with them what many so often do to the Ten Commandments? Will we try to domesticate those too? Let’s try out a for instance.
Let’s suppose that in the course of our prayers and discernment meetings, we come to the conclusion that our tradition of 3 hymns to every worship service deserves tent post status. It is funny to me that, no matter where I have gone to worship in the last 40 years of my life, every worship service contains three hymns. Imagine if we decided that this word from God should be placed outside on our sandwich board: We believe in the Ten Commandments and the Eleventh one too—Thou Shalt always worship with three hymns, not one more or any less.
It seems silly, of course, but it is possible that someone, at some point in time actually heard this as a word from God. We believe that God certainly influences the way we worship, so it is not impossible to conceive that one of our early Protestant preachers or laymen first heard this good word and put it into action. Now it is a tradition. As a tent post of the faith, 3 hymns in every service seems fairly non-controversial, right. But just last week, we violated the rule. We sang more than 3 hymns, and from the sounds of it, most of you really liked the change.
We are a people who are blessed by words from God. Many of the traditions of this church came about because at some point in our history, one of our Radnor ancestors first heard a word from God and started a mission or ministry. You all will know the stories better than I do. Who first brought liturgical colors into the church; who first decided it was ok to have these beautiful windows (I imagine that was controversial in the beginning because, Radnor doesn’t even have a steeple—Congregationalists were not very fond of such gaudy decorations). So who first proposed that we spend all this money on such extravagancies, and what reception did he/she receive?
At times in our congregational life we are called to change the way we approach the words of God, both those that come directly from scripture, like the Ten Commandments, and those that come into our hearts and minds from the Holy Spirit. The times change, and so does the way we are called to do Jesus ministry.
This is such a time again. For many of our neighbors, those who live up and down our streets and whom we are praying to “get to know better, church is simply not on their radar screen. Thursday night, I came in and about 14 little girls and women were practicing cheerleading in the basement. It was fantastic that we could offer them a warm, dry, safe place to do this. Delighted by all the activity, I asked one little girl what her name was.
“I’m Emily”, she said, “I am here for cheerleading”.
“I’m Pastor Matthew,” I replied as I bent over to shake her hand.
She smiled at me and, a little perplexed, said, “Well, what are you here for”?
It was funny, and very cute—but also just a little sad because I don’t honestly think that she knew what a Pastor was, or that she was in the basement of a church. As I looked around behind her I spied all the columns that held up the sanctuary above her head—very strong tent posts each one—and I realized that God was offering me a new word: “Here is an opportunity Pastor Matthew, what will you do with it?”
What will we do with it? We have a choice to either lament the loss of the way it used to be, or to find a way to recognize the changed community around us and embrace new ways of getting our faith out there on their radar screens.
It is only natural, part of growing in the faith and serving the world, that is constantly changing, just as our Lord told us to do.
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