Entitlement Versus Harm

 

Over the last year, and through the years I have been pastoring among you, we have continually looked at the Gospels in Holy Scripture regarding the teachings of Jesus. We have reflected on the reality that much of his teaching about truth, righteousness, and love was very hard to hear for those watching him and following him. Most who came to him, wanted him to fit into their “boxes” of belief, expectation, and hope. They overwhelmingly left disappointed (I readily welcome any discussion or clarity needed on this statement from Holy Scripture).

The Scriptures teach us that “he came unto his own (the Covenant People of Israel), and his own received him not”. The multiple thousands who had previously followed him, enamored by his healings, miracles, and free provisions, soon scattered when the “hard sayings of Jesus” began to pile up. Jesus expected too much, undermined current and established national and family understandings, and required a discipleship that expected the embrace of pain and a frightening form of authenticity and humility. The answer to the teachings of Jesus for most in the end? “Um, no thank you.”

Many influential forms of Christianity today (and their groupthink that requires enmeshed conformity), try to file the rough edges off of the Jesus of Holy Scripture. They have little sympathy that his teachings and discipleship apply to their learned culture, values, or assumptions. For others? (especially, the “other side”) Maybe. But to the “entitled”, well, that is another story.

Listen to the words of Dr. Karl Barth, one of the most influential theologians of the modern period (on almost all established Christian Traditions):

“It is not merely that the world exists side by side with God: it has taken His place, and has itself become God, and demands ‘the same devotion which the old-fashioned believer offered to his God’ (Dr. F. Strauss). Contradictions within the deified world—Nature and Civilization, Materialism and Idealism, Capitalism and Socialism, Secularism and Ecclesiasticism, Imperialism and Democracy—are not so serious as they give themselves out to be. Such contradictions are contradictions within the world, and there is for them no paradox, no negation, no eternity.”

In other words, they require simplicity not complexity (paradox), conformance not careful thinking and honesty (negation), and temporal pleasure not a transcendent transformative salvation (eternity).

One of the greatest examples of an entitled, performance-oriented, and angry-victim “character” in the Gospels is the Older Brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. But it was only the Prodigal Son in his honesty, repentance, and humility that received honor, glory, and salvation.

This Sunday as we look at the Parable of the Landowner and the Laborers, we come face to face with the important definitions of what is just and unjust, fair and unfair, righteous or unrighteous. In contrast to the ultimate righteous, good, and holy judge, is the entitled, rebellious and self-centered view of the world and it’s system.

In reflecting on Matthew 20:1-16, I wonder if we will have anything to apply to our own lives, that might open us up to less self-pity, less emptiness, and less loneliness? Something that may give us more contentment, peace, and a trust in a God who calls us to accept his love and our inability on our own to receive it?

I am confident that we have much to receive with joy, if this is our desire.

 

Fr. Tom

Trusting God for Our Future

 

Building on our last article, how does our theology about God help St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church as we plan to renovate our rectory/community ctr., continue to facilitate a welcome for visitors, and now clean up a lot of trees and tree damage?

In Genesis, the Lord reveals himself to Moses (and thus, the Nation of Israel) with the name “Yahweh”. Literally in Hebrew, it translates “I AM”. God is not just the Lord of Creation – matter, time, and space – he is above it and removed from it. God is not “was” or “will be”. For Him there is no past, present, and future; there is only NOW. Not only does our wonderful God know the future he has for us, but he also actually lives in that future. So as he has promised us time and time again, we have nothing to fear.

Listen to the young trusting David before he was king:

 ⁴¹ The Philistine came on and drew near to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him. ⁴² When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. ⁴³ The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. ⁴⁴ The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the field.” ⁴⁵ But David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. ⁴⁶ This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army this very day to the birds of the air and to the wild animals of the earth, so that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, ⁴⁷ and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand.

 We humans hear the promises of God, yet we are sure that he needs our help to get his plan right for us. He doesn’t. We hear the statement of David ‘that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give you into our hand,” and see it as fanciful thinking. David showed courage, believed that God would go with him, and fought with the weapon that God had taught him to use. Many of us, however, would have been packing multiple backup weapons just in case God didn’t come through. If trust and courage were easy, everyone would engage them. That is why the story of David and Goliath is still so compelling today.

 When we consider the greatness and love of our God, let us remember that He is calling us into a salvation history for His Covenant people that is already completed, but not yet. This is a mystery and one we will never completely understand. May this encourage us regarding his greatness. He is beyond us – transcendent – and He can be trusted.  May this help us as we move on in mission to the world. The Lord has called us to be faithful and responsible stewards. He has never called us to do his job for him. We just have to believe that he will use us even when we don’t get everything right.

  

Father Tom

 

Peace to the People

There is a phrase that comes up often in mystery and police shows: "Well, she kept herself to herself". The police representative is asking about the neighbor who disappeared, the person in the apartment across the hall who is a suspect in a crime, or a person next door who may have just committed a violent crime and has been arrested: "Well, I didn't really know them. They kept themselves to themselves".

Many people might make the mistake of thinking that someone who isolates themselves from community or from other people is a "peaceful" person. They keep themselves to themselves. They keep their head down. They avoid risk. They don’t offend people or get into relational conflict because they isolate themselves to avoid all of this stickiness. Is that what it means to be a "peaceful" Christian or a "peacemaker" as a Disciple of Christ?

Proverbs 18:1-2

The one who lives alone is self-indulgent,
showing contempt for all who have sound judgement.

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding,
but only in expressing personal opinion.

As Proverbs and a host of other teachings in Holy Scripture make clear: avoiding the difficulty of community often goes hand-in-hand with a selfish, opinionated, and unhealthy individualism. This person isolates themself so that opinions can stay intact and lifestyles and family cultural values never have to change; according to Proverbs this reveals some kind of self-indulgence and self-centeredness. One can't be a peacemaker as a Disciple of Christ, when our lives all about "me and my own". And yet, this is how many Christians choose to live. When problems arise, Christian Community, no matter how healthy (yet imperfect), is easily discarded with little consequence to everyday living.

This Sunday we will look at what it means to be a peacemaker, including what Jesus and Holy Scripture teach about it. As usual, Jesus says something very dangerous (and if a clergy person is smart, they will wisely navigate this minefield). However, in the time-period he said it in, it would have been scandalous! Women couldn’t get employment, families could be thrown out of synagogue, workers could lose their business connections and their only source of income! Family was the horizontal, everyday stability of first century life. And yet, Jesus says this:

Matt 10:34-39

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a                 sword.

35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-        law against her mother-in-law; 

36 and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38 and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

What!!??

To paraphrase Jesus and the Apostles: “the truth doesn’t change due to our ability or inability to stomach it.” The true peacemaker does NOT put the needs of himself/herself above certain things that Christ calls us to, no matter how difficult it is to do in the context of our inherited or developed views about marriage and family life. The only way to truly love another person, including our closest blood relations, is through the eyes and teachings of Jesus.

However, this does not mean that we turn our brains off and go throwing ourselves into undiscerned church busyness or undiscerned spiritual decision making. Sadly, there are many churches that will use and burn people out if they are allowed to do so. The “secret to the successful spiritual life” is constantly being sold by a rotating group of self-proclaimed experts. What we are called to is a sacrificial use of our spiritual gifts for the church and the world, but this does not negate our responsibilities as good stewards of our lives and the families we love. The point is, we are to make these often difficult and complicated decisions through the lenses of Jesus Christ and his callings on us with the aid of other, wise believers among us. If we choose not to, we risk becoming slaves to our own individualism, insecurities, and selfishness.

Lent is a time to look at why we are so emotionally committed to certain things in our lives, and to ask ourselves why we see these things as immovable entities. It is a time to find community with others facing the same complex applications in a society around us that seems so self-assured about what life is really about. If we want to bring shalom to the world around us, the starting place is not found in positive good activity alone. The starting place is to open our hearts to the life-changing work of the Spirit through Word and Sacrament; by living out this peace, this "wholeness" that we are experiencing through God's transforming work in our lives.

Let us continue to journey together in the Season of Lent.

Seven to One

 

Following Jesus means adjusting our beliefs to him

Jesus to the Sadducees: “You don’t know the scriptures or the power of God”

From the sermon:

How do you interpret the Holy Scriptures? Are there many ways to interpret the scriptures, and we just get to pick one? There were multiple Jewish groups in Israel looking for the coming Messiah. They had different ideas and different ideologies that affected their ability to receive the very Messiah they said they were waiting for. Was everyone right and they just needed to agree in the areas they all accepted, or did Jesus also repeatedly tell people that they were wrong and removing themselves from the hope of redemption?