On enthronement one heart at a time . . .

      I shared with the earlier crowd the challenge of preaching on this night.  There is a certain sense where I think we would all do well to sit in silence for several minutes and let the story speak to us.  Of course, we Episcopalians do not like silence very much.  Heck, even when we sing “Let all mortal flesh keep silence,” we are singing!  But that leaves preachers with a challenge.  How do we connect the story afresh?  How do we remind those gathered of its importance in our lives, in our case, sitting some 9000 miles to the WNW and 2000 years later?

      Thankfully, and mercifully, as in most liturgical traditions, we are assigned different readings for each gathering of worship.  Each time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we read from the OT, the Psalms, the NT, and the Gospel – I know, in Easter season we substitute Acts for the OT.  But you get my point.  We do it in part to expose ourselves to more of the Bible.  Over the course of the three-year liturgical cycle, we will read a great chunk of the Gospels, a number of Psalms, portions of most of the NT, and a nice sliver of the OT.  But that list of assigned readings, when functioning at their best, also helps us preachers approach the person of Jesus from different perspectives in Salvation History.  What do I mean? 

     I could have launched into a sermon tonight on Isaiah and how the Baby Jesus fulfils the promises made by God through the words of the prophet, promises that were not understood correctly until Jesus was raised from the dead and Ascended to His Father.   I could have launched into a sermon from the letter to Titus, reminding us all how the letter is addressed to all of us in the Church and of our hope and calling in this Baby.  More specifically, we could consider that wonderful collect in light of this letter that reminds us that Jesus was a pattern for holy living every bit as much as He was our salvation.  We need such reminders from time to time, right?  “Christian leaders” have been trying to convince others that it is their godly imperative to be loyal to those other than Christ for the good of the country, to be hawks on immigration or care for the poor and needy in our midst, and do any number of other activities that denounce the belief that Jesus is Lord—and that’s just this week’s FB and headline feeds on my computer, this week when the world around us is keen on “celebrating” this holiday.  You may have had a few more headlines in your own feeds that just popped into your minds.  I could even have launched into one of the themes of the Gospel story and do my best to capture your attention from an unusual angle.

     This year, though, I was either pushed or pulled into the Psalms for my sermons.  I hope it was pulled, as in drawn by God, to the psalms we read tonight and tomorrow in our celebration of the Incarnation.  But I acknowledge that Adventers had a hand in my consideration and discernment.  Those in the Bible Study before Thanksgiving complained that we seldom hear sermons on the psalms in the Church, as it is, but never on important days in the life of the Church.  I had reminded us in class again that Jesus Himself stated that all the Psalms were about Him.  For those of us not as familiar with the Bible as we wish, Jesus famously declares later in the Gospel from which we read tonight to His disciples that everything written in the torah of Moses, the Prophets and in the Psalms is about Him.  As I have endeavored to show those who attend the Monday morning Bible Study for several years now, we have made it to Psalm 70-71, the Psalms re-tell the story of the Bible in lyrical or poetical form.  One of the genres of the Scriptures is lyrical or poetic.  It makes sense.  Some of us prefer the creativity of poetry and lyrics to the “just the facts’ histories or the instructions of the letters or interpretative problems of the prophesies.  God caused His story to be written in so many ways, in part, because we find ourselves drawn to different genres.  That all being said, consider this your commercial to join us on Monday mornings, if you wished to learn more about this creative presentation of God’s faithfulness, love, and mercy.  Trust me, I will only be skimming the top of the psalm tonight.

     At this service we read the 97^th Psalm.  It is the fifth psalm in a collection of eight psalms known as Enthronement psalms or “God reigns” psalms.  Before you nod off assuming you know everything I am going to say with a great big “Duh!,” think about it for a second.  Does the world seem to agree with the claim of God’s people throughout history that He reigns?  I mean, in the days the psalms were composed, God’s people dealt with wars, with diseases, with economic privations, with oppression, with family dysfunctions, and with death.  WE don’t have any of those problems today, right?  Why are you laughing?  And if you and I see how little the world seems to reflect the reign of a good, loving, holy, and whatever adjective we want to add to an all-powerful God, what do you think those outside these walls see and believe?  More to the point, though, do we live as if we believe God is enthroned?  Or would our friends and family say we sometimes live as if we believe it for the occasional hour and a half on a few Sundays a year?  Ouch!  I see the squirms.  Unfair?  I guess it depends upon the observations of those closest to us.

     The Enthronement Psalms, 93-100, exist in the Fourth Book of the Psalter, which, among other things, describes our existence today.  God reigns, but He has not finished re-creating the world.  He has begun that work, but He has put off completing it.  Carola† likely spoke to you about the tension between the already and the not-yet during her Christmas sermons when she served here.  Good.  I see some faint nods of remembrance and wonder how I know what she preached almost a decade ago.  We know how Salvation History ends; we just do not know when.  One day, Jesus will dwell among us and we will speak and talk and, seeing how we are all good Episcopalians and He will have completed His work, we all may even drink from the cup of joy with Him—though that is a sermon for another time.  For now, we gather and remind ourselves of God’s promises, promises which begin to be fulfilled by this first step which we call the Feast of the Incarnation.

     To be clear, what we do is not unlike what the Ancient Jews did when a new king ascended the throne and these psalms were read at his coronation.  Whether Israel was engaged in wars or having supply chain issues or suffering from plagues or crazy weather or anything else, a king would ascend the steps to be enthroned as these psalms were proclaimed.  The psalms reminded the soon-to-be king of his chief obligation to teach the people the torah of God and of the fact that, as exalted as he perceived himself to be or was perceived by the people, he was but a steward of God.  Make no mistake, the king was a steward of God’s treasured possession, Israel, but he was still just a steward.  For the people witnessing the coronation, it was a reminder of who was truly in charge.  The king was the anointed of God and descended of David.  Notice, that is a little “a” and not a capital “A”.  To use vernacular, we would say the king was the preceeder of Jesus, the Anointed.  Kings of Israel were supposed to rule as if they believed this about themselves.  Newsflash!  Most did not.

     Kings, just like us, were sinners in need of redemption.  Most ignored God’s instructions during their reigns.  Very few kings were judged as faithful by God in the books of Kings and Chronicles.  Understand, too, faithful does not equal holy.  David was faithful, but he was not holy.  But each time he sinned and God pointed it out, David repented and accepted God’s decisions.  To put in the language of today and our liturgy, David tried not to sin, but, when he did, he repented and returned to the Lord.

     Among the teachings in this psalm are the reminders that God manifests Himself to His people through theophanies and through the created order.  As you read this psalm later, I hope, notice the examples given by the psalmist.  There are no specific examples cited, but the words of the poet likely call to mind specific examples in our heads, especially if we read the Bible or went to Sunday School as a child.  For example, does the psalmist have in mind the theophany associated with the giving of the torah on Sinai after the Exodus in verses 2-6, or does the psalmist have in mind what you and I might call a thunderstorm that shakes the earth and rattles our windows today?  Or both?  They are not necessarily exclusive images.

     Another important teaching, of course, is the reminder that the idols of the world cannot manifest themselves, cannot speak, and certainly cannot hear.  I know, I know, we are gathered to celebrate the hope and promise that this Baby truly is the Son of God.  None of us really want to think of idols, but we are a people sent back out into the world by God.  How does the god Capitalism answer our needs today?  How does the god War instruct Russia and Ukrainians and us today?  Just to give us all a few more spiritual wedgies, how does our worship of the god War cause us to forget our priorities?  What money spent on the next super weapon could have been better spent on caring for our citizens?  What lessons do we take away from the god Fame?  For all our clever advancements, little has changed in the world.  Humanity chases after all kinds of idols, of its own creation, which causes human beings to lose those things they most treasure.  What do we ultimately treasure?  Therapists and mental health experts remind us we want to be known and loved and valued.  Their instruction saturates the airways and internet to the point that irreverent adult comedies like Rick & Morty can explore that need while making us laugh at ourselves.  But the One who has always told us of His love for us, and Who eventually proved that love to each one of us, is the One who comes among us and reminds us this night.

     Most of us gathered tonight want to know that God is real, that God loves us, that God has something better in store for each of us.  We want to believe what the world tells us is a fairy tale is true.  Oh, I know, some of you may have been dragged here mostly against your will by a beloved matriarch or patriarch in your family.  Some may have come and not even know why.  But if you are paying attention at all to the readings and to me, I think we both know my statement a moment ago is true.  We all want to know it’s true, that the loved one who introduced us to God was not duped or gullible or crazy.  But how can we know?

     In truth, we are no different than those who came before us.  Sure, we have handy technological advances about which our ancestors could never have dreamed, but we have all the same doubts, same fears, same desires, and even the same skepticism.  You don’t think Mary’s neighbors whispered about her behind her back?  You don’t think Joseph’s buddies were certain he was cuckolded?  You don’t think those shepherds would have strolled into town anyway, absent the angelic host singing praises to God?  You don’t think those who heard the story later would have argued saying that the Son of God would be born in Rome, or at least in Jerusalem?  The details we are given speak to all that doubt, all that skepticism.

     But the greatest detail is the Nativity we celebrate tonight.  Tonight, and for the next twelve days, we remind ourselves that God became fully human and dwelt among us.  He came not with privilege and power, but with humility.  Were we the author of the story, He would be born in the halls of power, to parents who mattered to the world.  But He came in silence and meekness to an outlying village, to common parents.  He lived and worked and loved under oppression.  He experienced the same hurts and booboo’s and temptations we experience as children growing up, but He stayed focused on accomplishing the Will of His Father who sent Him.  In the end, it as a Holy Mystery.  Rational explanations and discussions fail, and we are left with faith.  But in the Anglican wing of the Church, we remind ourselves it is a reasonable faith.  Before He did it, God said He would do it.  Unlike the idols whose silence is deafening, God, the God who saves, told us repeatedly He would come, that He would make intimate communion with Him possible once again, that we would know the love He has for each and every single person in His creation, including us.  And then, once done, God told us He had done it!

     Like most things of God, His faithful people misunderstood, but who could blame us?  The world seduces us and convinces us of the false narratives that draw us away from our Father in heaven.  But that we might know these false narratives of the world were untrue, that we might know His redemptive power, God became human and lived among us, making Him even that much more approachable, that much more relatable, in part.  How many in David’s family truly understood the enthronement that was to come?  How many who saw the Baby or Toddler or Child or Teenager understood who He was?  How many of the experts were convinced that God’s glory was achieved with might and power and routing oppressing armies?  How few foresaw that this Baby would one day hang on a cross, vilified by those claiming to serve God and betrayed by those whose very existence He came to save, and die?  And, just as we know today, in Antiquity dead was dead.  Nobody believed that God would raise Him on the Third Day.  The Apostles had to drink and eat and still learn from Him to believe.  The disciples had to see it for themselves.  And the world laughed at them just as it laughs at us today.

     It all begins with God becoming this Baby, being born to this girl.  His true enthronement begins with swaddling clothes, a manger, and a hodgepodge of witnesses.  And us.

     It is of no mistake my friends that this liturgy ends differently than most.  In a few moments we will pray, we will confess our sins, we will be absolved, and we will eat His Flesh and drink His Blood.  Then we will be sent.  But part of our love of this liturgy is the end.  Before I dismiss us to the work that God has given each one of us to do, I will read from the Gospel of John.  We will be reminded once again that the Word became flesh and lived among us.  And we will be reminded once again that through the work, life, death, and Resurrection of the Baby born this Silent Night we are made heirs, sons and daughters, princesses and princess, of the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen.  And as our last acts, we will light our own candles from the flickering flame of the Paschal Candle.  And in that liturgy we will be reminded yet again how God works His plan of salvation.  Though the darkness is thick and cold outside, and the lights will be turned off in here, the light will shine forth in the darkness as it spreads throughout all of us gathered.  That spreading will remind each of us how God is enthroned in our lives, one person telling another person.  Individually, the flames are not special.  They are not even as bright as our new bullhorn out there.  But over time, the flames grow and grow.  One becomes two becomes four becomes all of us.  And the Light, His Light, shines in us and through us, reminding that His glory shines forth in all those who confess Him as Lord and who live and die as He instructs.  In a way, it is a metaphor for the glory He promises we will one glorious day experience, but it also a reminder of how He comes into the world and into lives.

     So often, my friends, we forget the glory of the One who created us, called us, and promises to be glorified in us.  We fall prey to the quick bursts of videos or the pithy statements that come across our screens.  We envy those who seem to have more things or respect or whatever than us.  We define ourselves by nationality or political party affiliation or by our profession.  But this night, this Silent Night and by this poem, you and I are reminded of the truth that God lives and is enthroned in our hearts and that we are called to be heralds of that truth.  We are reminded that each and every human being we encounter is like us, loved by God like us, hurts like us, laughs like us, and dies like us.  In the end, He will return, my friends, to exercise the authority that has been given to Him for His faithfulness, to right the wrongs and re-create a world that rejected Him.  But for now, from the humble beginnings, and through ordinary human beings like us, God longs to draw all in the world to Him, to His saving embrace.  Such has been His pattern since the beginning of the world.  Such is why we celebrate this night!

 

In His Peace,

Brian†

Enthronement . . .

      One of the great challenges of preaching the Christmas narrative is keeping people interested.  I must confess, there is often a desire on my part just to let the narrative speak for itself.  What can we gathered here this afternoon add to the likely frantic and anxiety-inducing experience of the Mary and Joseph?  More to the point, do you really need me telling you how they must have felt being forced to make this journey to be registered by an absolute power, Caesar?  What can we gathered here right now add to the joyous noise of the heavenly choir?  What can we here now add to the disbelief and curiosity of the shepherds?  None of us know what it is like to be shunned or mocked, do we?  None of us have ever experienced ridicule for telling our experiences.  Most difficult of all, though, might be the pondering of Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she considers in her heart all these things she sees and hears.

     Thankfully, in the Anglican tradition, we are not assigned only one reading at our Eucharistic gatherings.  The Feast of the Nativity or the Feast of the Incarnation, if you prefer, like all other Great Feast Days, has an appointed OT reading, Psalm, NT reading, and a Gospel reading.  Such a practice, among other things, allows us to approach the significance of this event from different perspectives in God’s Salvation History.  What do I mean?  I could launch into a sermon on Isaiah and how the Baby Jesus fulfils the promises made by God through the words of the prophet, promises that were not understood correctly until Jesus was raised from the dead and Ascended to His Father.

     I could also launch into a sermon from the letter to Titus, reminding us all how the letter is addressed to all of us in the Church and of our hope and calling in this Baby.  More specifically, we could consider that wonderful collect in light of this letter that reminds us that Jesus was a pattern for holy living every bit as much as He was our salvation.  We need such reminders from time to time, right?  “Christian leaders” have been trying to convince others that it is their godly imperative to be loyal to those other than Christ for the good of the country, to be hawks on immigration or care for the poor and needy in our midst, and do any number of other activities that denounce the belief that Jesus is Lord—and that’s just this week’s FB and headline feeds on my computer, this week when the world around us is keen on “celebrating” this holiday.  You may have had a few more feeds that just popped into your minds.

     I could also launch into one of the themes of the Gospel story and do my best to capture your attention from an unusual angel.

     This year, though, I was either pushed or pulled into the Psalms for my sermons.  I hope it was pulled, as in drawn by God, to the psalms we read tonight and tomorrow in our celebration of the Incarnation.  But I acknowledge that Adventers had a hand in my consideration and discernment.  Those in the Bible Study before Thanksgiving complained that we seldom hear sermons on the psalms, as it is, but never on important days.  I had reminded us in class again that Jesus Himself stated that all the Psalms were about Him.  For those of us not as familiar with the Bible as we wish, Jesus famously declares later in the Gospel from which we read this year to His disciples that everything written in the torah of Moses, the Prophets and in the Psalms is about Him.  As I have endeavored to show those who attend the Monday morning Bible Study for several years now, we have made it to Psalm 70-71, the Psalms retell the story of the Bible in lyrical or poetical form.  One of the genres of the Scriptures is lyrical or poetic.  It makes sense.  Some of us prefer the creativity of poetry and lyrics to the “just the facts’ histories or the letters or the prophesies.  God caused His story to be written in so many ways, in part, because we find ourselves drawn to different genres.  That all being said, consider this your commercial to join us on Monday mornings, if you wished to learn more about this creative presentation of God’s faithfulness, love, and mercy.  Trust me, I will only be skimming the top of the psalm.

      At this service, we read the 96^th Psalm.  The psalm is significant in that it comes from a subsection of the Fourth Book of the Psalms called the enthronement psalms or the “God reigns” psalms.  One of the claims of this book is that God is above us.  Most of us would say “duh” at that statement, but then how many of us really try to live our lives following His torah, as if we BELIEVE it?  You know, doing what He says we have to do, not doing those things He says we are not to do, and repenting when we fail—those kinds of things.  In an amazing way, and written long before Jesus was born, the “God reigns” psalms testify to the fact that God reigns . . . even when the world would love to convince us otherwise.  Israel, of course, would make that same claim.  Like us, though, God’s reign was not yet complete.  The vagaries of life still occurred.  Sometimes they were defeated and enslaved.  Often they were mocked.  They suffered privation and disease and death.  Sounds a lot like us, right?

     Though we understand that we remember that this night is, in some sense, the beginning of God’s enthronement, the world would like us to believe otherwise.  War still reigns in eastern Europe.  The economic condition of the world seems a bit out of control with inflation and supply chain issues.  In case we forgot, there is still a pandemic raging around us.  Heck, experts tell us that we are in the midst of a triple-demic now.  At least our politicians are look out for us and trying to govern us well . . . says no one ever now.  Heck, nature seems to have lost her mind.  We were below zero last night in much of Tennessee, and substantial snow was not too far to the north of us.  Just remember, it could be worse.  At least you did not deal with a blizzard and a volcano simultaneously like those people in Hawaii.

     I am glad many of you are chuckling.  A number of you are probably quickly adding to a list in your minds.  I am just glad none of us gathered are suffering from the consequences of broken relationships or mental or physical health issues or even stalked by death.  That ended the chuckling.

     The world out there, my friends, sees all that happening in our lives and thinks we are the crazy ones for gathering tonight to celebrate the fact that God came down to dwell with us, to be one of us, and to walk that path that leads to Calvary and His enthronement.  In their eyes and minds, we are wasting valuable time that could be used for last minute shopping or watching a bowl game or drinking.  But we braved the elements and the traffic to remind ourselves of the hope and promise this night brings.

     I will not spend too much time really breaking down this psalm for you.  My hope is that I touch on it enough that you will take the Order of Worship home and ponder it more in your hearts later, maybe after the little ones are asleep and the gifts are appropriately wrapped and assembled.  But the psalm makes two major claims, among other teachings, for why we celebrate this night and why we should have hope in the promises He gives us through the birth of this baby.

     The first is the simple reminder that God alone made everything, the heavens and the earth.  We no longer understand cosmology the way the psalmist’s audience did, but the gods of nations were thought to be strongest in particular places on the earth.  Athena was in Athens; Ra was in Egypt; Marduk in Babylon; the Ba’al’s in various towns in Canaan, and so on.  The psalmist reminds us that God made everything.  In our Prayer Book language we would say He is the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen.  Were the gods real, they depended on God for their strongholds.  You can imagine how well that understanding was received in the ANE, especially when the nations of the world were kicking and insulting a defeated Israel.

     But the psalmist does not stop with the reminder that God created all things.  There is, admittedly, a play on words in the psalm that you and I do not hear as most of us do not speak Hebrew.  The poet reminds us that the gods, the elohim, of the other countries are truly elihim, worthless things.  Why?  Because they neither hear nor speak.  Pray to an idol and what response do you get?  Nothing.

     Now you begin to understand on one level why we celebrate the Incarnation, the Holy Mystery of God becoming human and dwelling among us.  In one sense, it is a polemic against the idols and those who worship idols.  Think of all the Gospel writers’ and NT writers’ claims about seeing His face, hearing His voice.  Imagine you lived in the culture in which this was written and heard those claims.  They would seem the claim of a bunch of madmen and madwomen, to coin CS Lewis’ imagery.  But God becoming man meant that God knew us in every way, as oppose to those idols that exist in a theoretical understanding.

     I know, I know, we are too smart to worship idols in today’s world, right?  Nobody we know trusts in their armed forces for absolute protection or the enforcement of their desires, right?  Nobody we know defends or attacks capitalism with any kind of fervor, as if it blesses or enslaves them, right?  Nobody we know sacrificed their families, not just their firstborn sons, to climb the economic or corporate or social ladder, right?  The list goes on and on, but those around us worship idols not unlike Mars, or Mammon, or Molech.  They just have different names.

     But we see and hear the frustration.  I paid my dues.  I was loyal.  I did more than was asked of me.  This is what I get for my faithfulness and trust?

     Part of the comfort and promise of this night is the reminder that God truly became human.  He was born to a faithful couple in an out-of-the-way province.  Based on their presentation of Jesus on the eighth day, we know they were not rich.  Were we to make this plan, we would have Him born in Rome, or at least the Temple in Jerusalem.  But He was born in Bethlehem.  He was raised by a carpenter.  He had brothers and sisters.  He saw the effects of oppression everywhere He went; heck, He experienced oppression even from those whom He came to save.  But how much more approachable is God knowing all this? 

     Make no mistake either, my friends, the world of Antiquity thought the Jews and the Christians every bit as gullible or deluded as some in the world think us.  In some cases, the world around them thought them even dumber.  It was axiomatic that what happened on earth was reflected in the heavens and vice versa.  If Babylon or Rome conquered Judea, it meant that Marduk or Jupiter had defeated Yahweh.  If a carpenter’s Son was put to death by crucifixion, He was dead!  Yet, despite the seeming failures and even deaths, Jews and Christians were alike in that they knew God reigned and would dwell among His people.

     Were that the only reminder of the psalm, that God reigns and will reign one glorious Day, it would be enough.  But God always gives us more than we can ask or imagine.  At the beginning of this sermon I told you the psalm came from a subsection of the psalter called the enthronement psalms.  Eight psalms, from 93-100, are psalms that proclaim God’s reign and what it will be like.  I also reminded you that this Feast of the Nativity was the first step in the enthronement of Jesus.  His enthronement will include the miracles that testify to His identity and authority; His Passion and Death will prove Him faithful to God and worthy of our praise; His Resurrection will instruct us that He alone was faithful to God; and His Ascension will signify to us that He now sits at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us, until He comes to establish once and for all eternity His kingdom.  But while we wait for that enthronement, another has already taken place.

     The psalm captures two ideas about God that are challenging for some to reconcile.  How can God be the Creator of all that is, seen and unseen, and yet care about me?  It seems crazy to think that He who fashioned a cosmos some 16.2 billion light years across knows you or you or me intimately.  More amazingly, what begins tonight was His effort to reconcile each one of us, and each person who has ever lived or will live, to Him, that we might one glorious Day experience an intimate and familiar relationship with Him, as did Adam and Eve before sin.  But that is the promise, and it is one we know is already being fulfilled.

     I mentioned the Ascension, when Jesus went to sit at the right hand of the Father.  Why did He do that?  Why not stay and establish His kingdom permanently?  It is an answer we might know fully until we stand before Him, but we know at least a part of the answer.  Jesus leaves so that the Advocate can come.  While Incarnated, Jesus’ work was concentrated in a time and place we call 1^st Century Judea.  By virtue of His Ascension and our own baptism, though, another enthronement has occurred.  To use the language of other denominations, He has been enthroned in our hearts.  Good, I see nods of understanding.  What does such an understanding mean?  Jesus Himself instructs us.  We will do greater things than He and He will be interceding for all who will glorify Him in their lives.  All who are baptized into His death and His Resurrection claim Him as Lord.  The world misunderstands that Christians are solely concerned about the after-life.  To be sure, for some, it is the primary and sole focus.  But by virtue of our baptism, my friends, you and I are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  More amazingly, we are promised by Him that He will be glorified in our lives through our obedience to and love of Him.  We can tackle evils in His Name.  We can preach peace in His Name.  We can do whatever He commands, confident that He will glorify us.  That is the promise.  That is the reminder we give ourselves when we ask for remission of our sins all the blessings and benefits of His Passion.  That is the prayer we make when we ask for our daily bread and for things to be on earth as on heaven in the prayer that He gave us.  That is the covenant that He sealed with each one of us with that broken body and blood that He gave for our lives and the life of the world.

     All of that, though, is impossible without that first step which we remember and celebrate tonight.  All of that we ponder as we sing Silent Night and Joy to the World and remind ourselves in modern lyrics, joining our voices with that angelic host, as we focus our attention on small village in an out-of-the-way province.  The world and many of us, might think we would have a better plan to declare God’s glory and to begin His enthronement.  But such was His love of each one of us, such was His desire that we might choose Him as Lord, that He came and dwelt among us, taught among those like us, and died like each one of us is likely to die.  But when He seemed a defeated king, God raised Him that we might know His power.  And now He chooses to enthrone Himself in vagabonds and ordinary men and women like you and me, that others in the world may come to know His love of them, until He comes again to re-create all that has been marred.  It is a story of glorious promise and wonder, a story that we and those out there need to hear in our words and see in our lives!

 

In His love,
Brian†

The Sign of Chidren and the The Child . . .

      I have read the Isaiah passage, and the Gospel lesson which incorporates it, any number of times.  I suppose the geopolitical state of the world today caused it to land differently this year.  We live in a world today whose geopolitical nature has changed drastically these last few months and, in some sense, the likes of which we have not seen or experienced since the end of WW2.  For my part, I grew up in a world defined by a Cold War.  We knew they were our likely equal in any battle, and they knew we were theirs, so confrontations were fought through proxy wars.  But just to be safe, we practiced hiding under our desks in the event of a nuclear attack.  It’s good to see people laughing at that.  My kids ask why in the world our leaders thought hiding under a school desk in the event of a nuclear attack would do any good.  It was a different world.

     With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though, perceptions have changed.  I am not even sure I think Russia’s army is top 10 in the world now.  When Putin and his sycophants threaten us, I mostly chuckle at the conventional threat Russia seems to pose.  I even wonder now, if Putin launched all 5500 nuclear missiles at once, how many would even make it out of their silos?

     We have the luxury, though, of living several thousand miles away, protected by armed forces that would make Ukrainian armed forces seem ill-prepared and ill-equipped by comparison.  Unlike our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, Putin is no threat to our survival or comfort.  Our utilities will likely work this week.  There will likely bee no explosions to wake us at night.  None of us will be forced to retreat to a non-existent subway for shelter.

     Seeing those events and reading about the struggles of Ukrainians, though, reminded me of the context in which the Isaiah prophesy was given.  And, that reminder serves as a point of instruction for all of us.  Isaiah teaches us about the nature of prophesy and about how God works among us, no matter what is happening in the world around us.

     Before we get to the words spoken by God to Ahaz in our lesson today, we need a quick geopolitical reminder.  Assyria, led by Tiglath-pilezer, is the super power on the world’s stage.  Tiglath-pilezer is one of my favorite names in the ANE.  I lobbied hard for David to be Tiglath-pilezer when he was in utero.  It is a name that stands out, but can be friendly when it is not being powerful.  I mean, it lends itself to “Tiggy,” right?

     Yeah, Karen did not like it either, obviously.  I have even lobbied for it as a name for a cat.  There’s been no Tiggy the cat in the McVey household, and we have nearly as many cats as kids!

     Tiggy has been busy conquering much of the ANE.  He has become an existential threat to everyone in the area.  God’s people, just to remind us, are divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah.  They should be united, but sin gets in the way.  The northern king and the king of Aram decided to unite to fight the Assyrians, and they invited Judah, Ahaz specifically, to join their alliance.  Ahaz declined.  So, Aram and Israel decided to fight Judah instead of Assyria.  Ahaz’ response was not good.  He stripped the Temple of gold and other jewels, sent them to Tiggy, and asked Tiggy to protect him.  Ahaz chose to take matters into his own hands rather than trust God, despite the prophet’s instruction.

     God allows some wrestling.  He lets Ahaz complain and grumble and fear.  God tells Ahaz that, though there will be some struggle, Judah will survive.  Ahaz cannot believe the prophet’s voice.  So God offers the king of Judah the opportunity to pick a sign that he might believe the Lord is with the prophet and behind all this promise and instruction.

     Now, let me just give a bonus lesson here.  If you ever find yourself in a mystical encounter with God and He offers you the opportunity to choose a sign to know that it is Him, pick the sign!  I do not care what sign you pick.  Just pick the sign!  It never goes well when human beings tell God they will not pick a sign.

     Our passage picks up in the story with God telling Ahaz to pick a sign as a low as Sheol or as high as heaven.  Ahaz can choose anything he can think of to discern whether God is truly behind the voice of the prophet.  Anything!  It could be a wet or dry fleece.  It could be a parting of waters.  God has offered Ahaz any sign.  And Ahaz says, “Nah.  I’ll stick with my own negotiating and military skills.”  Guess how this story is going to end.  You are right.  This will eventually end in Exile.  Judah, like Israel, will be disgorged from the Land for Covenantal unfaithfulness.  If the king is rejecting God and His prophet, you can imagine how well the people are following God’s instruction.  To be fair, they seem to be doing a better job than their northern brothers and sisters, but God does not grade on a curve.

     Isaiah responds by declaring God’s weariness with mortals.  A few colleagues were convinced this week that verse 13 should not be in Scripture.  God would never weary of us.  I had to laugh and remind them “have you met any human beings?”  Isaiah addresses Ahaz by Ahaz’ family, house of David.  In case you all have forgotten, David’s house has done some pretty stupid things despite God’s covenant.  Of course, to be fair, David did some sins despite the Covenant being sworn with him.  Some apples fall close to their trees.  Then comes the prophesy, the young woman will bear a child.  We know the prophesy as it gets read every Christmas season.  The prophesy finds its ultimate fulfillment in the birth of Jesus to Mary.

     The problem with prophesy, of course, is that there is no guarantee it will be fulfilled only once.  Another such famous one would be “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”  That was fulfilled when God led Israel out of Egypt during the Exodus, but the Gospel writers apply it to the Holy Family when Herod dies.  Good, I see the nods.  Prophesy is challenging for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is how many times it might be fulfilled by God.

     Speaking of which, how many women do you think lived in the southern kingdom and gave birth to a child?  How many times was this prophesy, then fulfilled in Judah, long before Jesus’ birth in Jerusalem?  Those of us who prefer a one prophesy one history correlation might argue about the Immanuel.  Of course, the birth of a child in Israel meant that the family would participate in Messiah’s reign.  Ownership of the Land was almost a sacramental act.  How did one know that one was an inheritor of God’s promises?  Through the ownership of the Land.  What terrified families was losing their land.  Families would labor, literally, consoled by the fact that, even if they did not see the full promises of God in their lifetime, their descendants would.  If you ever had parents or grandparents who pestered you about children when you got married, imagine how challenging that nagging would have seemed had your loved ones imported sacramental-like importance to you having children.  I know, right?  For Israel, the birth of a child extended the duration of the Covenant another generation.

     But look closer at Isaiah’s words.  Before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.  In other words, Aram and Israel will be carried off into Exile before they can conquer Judah. 

     What happens?  The northern kingdom is carried off into Exile.  The southern kingdom gets a reprieve despite Ahaz’ refusal of God’s providence and deliverance, thought it gets carried off into Exile in the end.  The sign from God is one that both saves and condemns.

     Which, when we think about it, is the same sign we will celebrate at the Feast of the Incarnation, right?  The same sign that we think demonstrates the ultimate fulfilment of this prophesy.  Why does Jesus come and dwell among us during the Incarnation?  To serve.  To save.  To heal.  Pick your favorite descriptor that does not include judging.  What happens when He returns?  He judges.  The time for saving will be at an end for those who have rejected Him.  In a very real way, this season reminds us of that sign from God.  As we speed toward the Incarnation, you and I are reminded that we live in the sign of saving or healing or embracing.  But, and there is always a heavy but in the life of the Church, we know that one glorious Day, He will return to do away with sin and death for good.  He will cast aside that which is evil, that which rejects Him, and remake the world as He did way back in the beginning.  Then, will that promise made in Isaiah be truly fulfilled.  We who call Him Lord will commune with Him as did Adam and Eve.  Our questions will be answered.  Our booboos will be kissed.  And our Father will take great delight in our joy of His new creation, much as parents next week will be joyed at the unwrapping of those special gifts for their own children!  That is the ultimate promise and prophesy for which we all yearn.

     It is appropriate, then, on this the fourth Sunday of Advent, that we let our children tell the story.  Like those who have come before, we know the promises are alive for another generation.  In some ways, the struggles with lines in the pageant are not unlike our own struggles in life.  But like life, the pageant has moments of joy and laughter and even profound awe.  In acting out a play, we remind ourselves again that, despite how we may weary God, as any child might a parent, still He loves us, treasures us, and wants what is best for us!  Thankfully and mercifully, even when we did not understand what we truly needed, He sent His Son, Christ our Lord, to incarnate His love of us and remind us of His call on each and every life.  More amazingly, though, He entrusted that story to us and instructed us to share with a generation yet unborn, that they, too, might know His love and His redemptive power and, most especially, His promise!

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†

Our Racing Hearts and God's Respone!

      I suppose I might say we continue our immersion in the grammar of Advent Scripture readings today.  For those of you who are visiting or who missed Advent 1 and 2, we have been paying some close attention to the grammar and what the grammar conveys to us.  On Advent 1, Bishop John reminded us all that we face the future with an eye to the past deliverances of God.  Specifically, he preached on the backward side of days and how Advent calls the people of God, and Adventers in particular, to live in a way that resembles one rowing a boat.  We focus on the many deliverances of God, but especially on Jesus, even as we row our boats into uncertain or foggy futures, confident that God will deliver us through the next thing.

     Last week, I tried to focus our attentions on immersion.  We spoke about the immersion of forgiveness proclaimed by John the Baptizer and the immersion of the Holy Spirit made possible through Jesus.  Specifically, we reminded ourselves of the Sacrament of Baptism and how that Sacrament does both.  Given the conversations on the sermon, I would say it hit appropriately. A great deal of conversation centered on the ways in which we live to immerse ourselves in the ways of God.  Some of us talked about our prayer life; others spoke of their study of Scriptures; a few spoke of ministry or, as we like to say, loving our neighbors as ourselves; and most reminded themselves of worship.  Good, I see nods, and I see some thoughtful consideration.

     Today, I will be focusing pretty intensely on verse 4 of Isaiah’s passage.  We see the passage cited by Jesus, as Jesus speaks of John the Baptizer and his ministry.  John is like every other human being who has ever lived and heard the testimonies about Jesus.  Is He the Messiah?  For our part, Jesus seems cryptic in His response, but Jesus brings us all back to this chapter of Isaiah and calls upon John to evaluate Him based on what Isaiah said about Him.  John, of course, is reminded of the truth of Jesus, but that same information will be ignored by the Sanhedrin.  Isaiah tells us the signs of the Anointed One of God.  The lame will leap, the deaf will sing, provision will come forth in the wilderness—each of us gathered knows how those signs were fulfilled and recorded in the Scriptures, just as each of us were drawn to Jesus by other stories we were told.  And, it is appropriate in Advent, when things in the world do not seem to be going the way we want or expect, that we remind ourselves of the fact that we are not alone and of the fact that God still loves us when we wonder and even doubt.

     The first focus I’d like to do this morning is to draw our attention to the literal meaning of the Hebrew at the beginning of verse 4.  Our translators chose “Say to those who are of a fearful heart.”  I get it.  The choice makes sense.  But the literal Hebrew is something close to “Say to those whose hearts are racing.”  Think of the difference conveyed by the original Hebrew.  We have a ton of Adventers who work as doctors and nurses.  I am sure they will have a million more reasons to suggest, but why do our hearts race?  Fear?  Sure.  Anxiety?  You bet.  Excitement?  Yes.  Anticipation?  Yeah.  Our list goes on an on.  The docs and nurses would tell us our hearts race any time our bodies produce adrenaline, that it is a biochemical response, right?  Yay, I remembered my biology.  But adrenaline courses through our bodies at times other than when we are afraid.  Does God want us to know He is there for us when we are afraid?  Without a doubt!  But God also wants to remind us that He is with us and sufficient for us in all times that our hearts are racing.  All times.  Just as significantly, there is nothing wrong with the racing heart.  It is a response to external events or stimuli, usually.  We are not “bad Christians” because we are afraid or anxious or excited.  We are remined, though, that when our hearts race, we should hear and remember the words of the prophet Isaiah.

     What are those words?  They are the glorious and comforting words of the Messiah.  In yet another way, to steal the images presented by Bishop John, you and I are called to keep our focus on THE DELIVERANCE found in Christ Jesus as we row our boats into foggy or unclear futures.  They are the same words with which Jesus answered John the Baptizer’s question, “Are You the One?  Or is another to come after?”  John, for all his import and for all his work had the same worries and fears and doubts as you and I.  He knew the story of his conception in she who was thought barren.  He knew dad had been silenced by the angel for her pregnancy.  He knew the voice of his aunt, the mother of the Messiah, when she shared her incredible news while he was yet in utero.  His whole life was lived dedicated to the understanding that he was to announce the coming of Messiah.  And for all his wisdom and faithfulness, where was he?  He was imprisoned.  He was facing death.  This was not the fairy tale ending anyone expected.  Very few people, indeed, perceived the Suffering Servant of Isaiah.  Nobody expected the herald of Messiah to be rejected and killed for his proclamation.  Such, though, was the predicament of John.

     Jesus, for His part, could have simply answered yes to His cousin’s question?  But would that have stopped the racing heart of John?  Jesus, instead, brought John’s shoreline back into focus.  What did John’s disciples report to their master?  The lame walked and leaped.  The mute could talk and sing.  Jesus fed the 5000 and 4000 men, besides women and children.  Heck, some claimed Jesus raised little girls and old men from the dead!  Jesus cured lepers and cast out demons.  Jesus’ disciples claimed He walked on water and calmed the sea.  Better still, Jesus’ answer would have caused John to think back on his own life, on God’s deliverances in his life and on God’s deliverances of John’s people.  Which story or stories meant the most to John?  I have no idea.  Scripture does not tell us.  But John had the same stories of corporate deliverance to look back on, to think about, and to focus.  And as he reminded himself of God’s unwavering faithfulness, what happened to his heart?  He was encouraged to do the work God had given him to do, trusting God would deliver and vindicate him.

     Were we to stop there, most of us would be well reminded and well satisfied that God has met our need.  We recognize we have no reason for our hearts to race and that, when they do, a great response is to focus our attention on God and His deliverances of us in Christ and in however many more experiences we have had.  But there is always more to the Good News!

     The prophet Isaiah goes on to remind us that our God is here and that He will come with vengeance and terrible recompense.  I will say a number of commentators I read this week were incredibly uncomfortable with that language.  There were efforts to “soften” the language and make it more “palatable for preaching.”  The problem with such efforts, though, is that they take away some of the power of understanding God’s words and Word.  Naqam literally means vengeance.  It is modified a bit by the additional gemul elohim.  Our translators chose terrible recompense, but y’all have had me for nearly 8 years now and know the usual meaning of elohim.  We might better understand the comfort of the prophet’s words if we spoke Hebrew, but we need to translate it.  Whether we go with God’s response or God’s dealing or some other artful way, we are reminded in the passage of both the immanence of God and the future vindication which His people will experience because of His Coming and His judgment!

     In the first, the immanence, we are reminded of the closeness of God, of the ever-present-with-us of God.  Our evangelical brothers and sisters would use language of Him dwelling in our hearts or making our hearts His throne; we Episcopalians might just choose to remind ourselves that He is with us always to the end of the ages.  Good.  I see lots of nods and a couple chuckles.  One reason behind the Ascension of Jesus after the Resurrection is so that the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, might come.  While Jesus walked the earth, the redemptive power of God was focused on Him in the geographical area we call Judea or Israel in the first century, as we reckon time.  Now, we understand that we are empowered by the Holy Spirit and able to accomplish great things to the glory of God through faith obedience and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Anything anybody disagrees with?  Good.  Let’s keep going and look back at Carola on our shores.

     Despite that promise of God, are things the way they will be?  Good!  Carola would be so proud.  For those of you not here during her interim period among us, the voice said “we are in the already and not yet.”  What Carola tried to teach Adventers was that we live in a tension.  We know for certain that God has won, but we know things are not yet fully re-created.  For now, and until His Second Coming, we obey His commands on our lives and fight evils in His Name and to His glory.  Because God wins in the end, we are certain we do, too, right?  Great!  We are all like John the Baptizer!

     When we begin to labor for the things of God, when we begin to discern prayerfully and faithfully those things He calls us to do, are we guaranteed victory and glory and wealth and whatever other blessings the world values?  No?  Are you sure?  We are laughing but we are laughing because we have some many points of deliverance upon which to focus, and we might be laughing that we, like John before us, are heralds of God’s loving certainties.

     The world has convinced many of us in the Church that vengeance is a four-letter word.  God, though, has reminded His people since the beginning of the Covenant that vengeance rightfully belongs to Him.  We might rail at our circumstances and the evils we perceive, but we also remind ourselves that God alone judges.  Better still, until our Lord Christ returns, God is delaying judgment and vengeance.  BUT . . . and this is a heavy BUT . . . we know that when He returns it will be to judge.  All in the world, past, present, and future, will have had a chance to make a choice.  God has wooed every single human being who walked, who walks, and who will walk the earth.  God has promised through His Son that all who proclaim Him Lord will dwell with Him for eternity.  Those who rejected Him, those who scoffed at the teaching, wisdom, wooing, and whatever else, though, will face a different promise, a promise, we would say, that points us and them back to the Exile and the disgorging from the Land.

     But in God’s judgment comes that idea of vengeance and vindication which makes us excited and uncomfortable at the same time.  One of the commenters I read really wanted us to think of God’s coming in the idea of retributive justice.  I get it.  I can see its appeal.  For those of you unaware of those efforts in the world around us, such an understanding has captured the imagination of some who are for this to have a place in our justice system.  If somebody robs you and gets caught, you accept repayment plus interest in exchange for them not going to prison.  Good, I see some nods.  Feel free to come in this week, if you want to know more.  It’s an effort to correct a penal system that is not rehabilitative. 

     What happens, though, when the crime is not financial?  How do we value the interest?  For example, is it possible someone has scammed us out of food the last four years?  Were they caught, would repayment of the price of the food plus the inflationary cost and interest satisfy naqam, let alone gemul elohim?  We might be tempted to answer yes quickly, but what if another family did not receive needed food because that initial food was stolen?  How do we value their hunger?  Their suffering?  Plus, if it caused us to appear callous or uncaring, or God to appear callous and uncaring, and it caused them to turn away from God, what is the right value placed on the underlying theft?  See the problem?  And we are talking something easy, food.  What about the hard to quantify things in life?  What if a politician accepted a bribe and voted against something God wanted?  That never happens in our country, though.  No, we just call it lobbying, not bribing.  Let’s look outside it then.  What if a ruler decided he wanted to conquer a country to restore his country’s glory and perception in the world and then punished civilians of that neighboring country for exposing his country’s shortcomings?  Too real?  What if an internet influencer knowingly lied to get people afraid of masks in a pandemic resulting in one or two deaths?  What if law enforcement panicked or misused their authority and killed someone in custody or killed someone unarmed and surrendering?  What if someone sold a gun to someone they suspected were mentally ill, or sold it in a way to avoid any background checks, and that gun was used to kill a child or shoot up a school?

     Good.  I see lots of disgusted faces now.  But I also see faces know who understand the comfort of the words of Isaiah.  God is with and God has delivered us.  One glorious Day, though, He will return to set all things right.  One Day He will return with His glorious response, repaying those who rejected His saving offer from the Cross and vindicating those who chose Him and persevered despite the seductive offers of those who reject Him.  Armed with that reminder and knowledge and promise, we are sent back out into the wildernesses He has assigned to us, to proclaim His saving grace to all those with racing hearts in the world around us, that they, too, might choose Him and receive that peace that passes all understanding and join us as inheritors of those wonderful promises of He Who Will Dwell with Us for all eternity!

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†

Repudiators of merit and heralds of God's Grace!

      Given some of the nonsense coming out of the mouths of self-describing Christians, we might do well to focus our attention on Jeremiah this morning and remind ourselves of the roles of false prophets and ends that God pronounces for them.  Given the anxieties of the world, I suppose we should not be surprised.  But I have to admit the focus shocks me, and some of the prophesies leave me gobsmacked.  One politician was on television, Friday I think, exhorting her supporters that it was her privilege to cause Jesus to return.  Something about her policies and her words were meant to hasten His return and judgment Day.  We wonder why people hate Christians?  For my part, I could not change the channel fast enough.  I had a couple visitors in the office who expressed that I needed to rally y’all to support a particular party because I was risking your souls by allowing you to vote according to your own conscience (as if I can MAKE any of y’all do anything!).  I even received a wonderful mailer about the end times, how some guy has figured out the time of the eschaton (yet again) and in spite of Jesus’ reminder that it is not for us to know the times.  Good, you are snorting, so I am guessing you do not need to be vaccinated against that skubala.  If you do, though, feel free to swing by or call me.  We can commiserate together and then figure out our roles in that mess.

     Instead, I was drawn to the Gospel passage for us today.  I am hoping that those who need the vaccination against the nonsense of the false prophets and politicians of our day well be given a firm foundation to resist the allure of such false teachings.  Better still, I hope all of us will be reminded of our where our focus should be as we head toward the end of the Church and calendar year and prepare ourselves for Advent and the Incarnation.

     Our reading from Luke today is rather short, especially when compared to our selection from Jeremiah.  It is only six verses, but the spiritual wedgie might be third degree!  Jesus tells the parable to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded other with contempt.  Right off the bat, we are warned that only those who trust and themselves and loathe others need to pay attention.  Of course, a quick glance around or personal inventory will remind us all that we all find ourselves in need of this teaching from time to time.  Some of us more than others!  Don’t despair.  God is not shocked.  And Jesus knew we would sin, and still He loved us to see our salvation through.

     Human beings are well-versed in creating in-crowds and marginalized people, us and them.  Think of the war in Ukraine.  How do the Ukrainians view the Russians now?  Orcs.  Most of us realize that the Russian soldiers have no idea why they are in Ukraine fighting their cousins.  Now, with the recent call up’s of those who could not flee the country, there are 2-300,000 more soldiers who do not want to be fighting deployed to the front lines.  We understand why Ukrainians hate the invasion.  We know that on some level they understand that the guilt falls on Putin.  But should they be thinking of most Russians as orcs?  Not if they are faithful Christians.  Those Russian soldiers are human beings, too.  While there are some evil soldiers who like stealing and raping and destroying, most just want to live.  But, all are dehumanized so that no one feels remorse about their deaths.

     It’s harder to tap into that in America.  I learned pretty quickly that people in Tennessee like to pick on people in Alabama a lot.  I guess, thanks to college football, that’s a rivalry of sorts.  When I lived in Iowa, we sort of had a rivalry with Missouri and Wisconsin and Missouri.  Since I was not from there, it was hard to become emotionally invested in the rivalries, though I laughed at the toothbrush joke.  Haven’t heard it?  Why don’t we call a toothbrush a teethbrush?  Because it was invented in Missouri.  Take your time.  It’s not that subtle.

     I grew up in West Virginia where our big rivals for status in the United States are Mississippi and Louisiana.  Imagine living in a place where you get excited you are 49^th or, dare to dream, 48^th in whatever ranking.  But football does seem to contribute to the creation of “others.”  Marshall fans and WVU fans do not get along.  At all.  It’s like an Alabama-Auburn hatred or a Florida-Georgia loathing.  It’s just that nobody else cares because, well, sometimes we are 49^th and sometimes we are 50^th.  I suppose we did export a feud, though.  Everybody knows about the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s, right?  We love to believe we are the good guys and the others, whoever the others happen to be, are contemptible.  Hmm.  That sounds like political speech, doesn’t it?  It is and it is not.  The issue is the sin of pride or the virtue of humility, if we want to speak positively about this.  But sin touches every interaction in this world, be they social or political or economic or cultural or anything else.

     In any event, I share all that because Jesus’ example will not hit us the way it would have hit his or Luke’s audiences.  Jesus tells us there were two men, one a Pharisee and one a tax collector.  Pharisees would seem a modern oxymoron.  They were the religious lawyers of the day.  Most of us seem to think lawyers are anything but religious, it might surprise us to learn that the Pharisees were studious articulators of the torah.  Now, in theory, we are Anglicans, and Anglicans have an appreciation of canon lawyers in our tradition.  We don’t in America, but we have people like Hilary and Oliver who can tell us about them from the motherland.  In the beginning, Pharisees helped Israel figure out disputes.  Those who were judged to be closer to God’s intention were deemed righteous by the courts.  Note, you could have been going sideways to God at 90 degrees and be more righteous than someone running away at 180 degrees.  Neither, though, would be in a relationship with God which we would call intimate.  Human beings being human beings, though, Pharisees eventually decided God needed their help.  As one commentator I read put it, they created, at least in their minds, the shield around the torah which kept Israel from breaking the Covenant with God.  The idea was noble.  If you keep our instructions, you will never run afoul of God’s instructions.  But, thanks to Jesus’ interactions with them in all the Gospels, we understand that sin of pride grabbed them by the throat.  They elevated themselves and their role in society to the role of God’s defenders, as if He needed anything from any human being.  While the intention was, perhaps, noble in the beginning, it certainly morphed as time passed.  Eventually, the Pharisees created so many shield laws that they earned Jesus’ condemnation for creating an oppressive system rather than leading people to the worship of God.  The fruit of their sin in illustrated in the Pharisee of our story today.

     The Pharisee begins with what we would call the formula for a prayer of praise of thanksgiving.  Those who study the psalms can talk to you during the coffee hour, but a prayer of praise or a prayer of thanksgiving is mostly self-evident.  The prayer is meant to praise God or thank God or both for fulfilling a need of or delivering the one praying from danger or threat.  To give us all a bit of a spiritual wedgie this morning, it’s the kind of prayer we all promise to make if God will get us out of our current predicament but seldom follow through praying.  Ouch?  I see the squirms.

     Such prayers are meant, as we would expect, to focus on the blessings or deliverance that God has provided.  More specifically, the prayers are meant to focus on God Himself.  In two short verses, though, the Pharisee makes it clear that God is not the focus of his life.  Five times he uses the pronoun “ego.”  Verbs in Greek, like many other languages, has the pronoun included in the verb.  The use of the pronoun occurs when one wants to emphasize that pronoun.  This Pharisee’s grammar makes it clear to those hearing Jesus’ teaching or reading Luke’s account that the subject of the Pharisee’s prayer is himself.

     We think it a horrible prayer, of course, and we love to assume that it is a problem for people then or for “other” people, but it is often one of those prayers that is hidden in the heart.  One example is the “There but for the grace of God go I.”  I am certain that none of us present have ever said that with pride in our hearts, but have we ever heard the prayer and wondered whether the person saying it was thankful to God for the blessings He has provided them or pleased in themselves?  To cut a bit closer to the bone, what about pronouncements involving “those people”?  We serve a God who instructs us that He created everyone wonderfully and in His image; how quick are we, though, to draw borders, to label those different as “other,” and to treat them as anything but a brother or sister?  And what of our treatment in the Church of each other’s denominational affiliations?  This group mocks that group, and that group mocks another group.  And even within our denomination, look at the “those people” discussions. 

     As I named earlier, the sin is pride.  We elevate ourselves, and those things that we value, to be equal to God or the things that God loves.  To be sure, I have been blunt.  Many who have this in their heart know they have to be careful in how they make their statements.  But it is a condition known by them and God.  They are trusting in their own sufficiency, of their perception that God needs them, that Jesus died for others, but not themselves.

     Against the prayer of the Pharisee stands the tax collector.  Tax collectors were loathed in the ANE, but in Judea especially.  Think politicians with soldiers under their control.  Tax collectors got their licenses by bidding on the areas.  There was lots of bribery involved in getting the choicest regions.  Of course, it really was a license to steal with soldiers to enforce the theft.  Tax collectors recouped their bribes by making residents and businesses pay more taxes.  If you protested too much, you got the point . . . of a spear.  Think modern politicians + traitor + control of a military unit, and thank God neither party’s politicians control armies themselves!

     The tax collector knows his standing before God and cannot bring himself even to look up at God in the Temple.  He asks God to be merciful to him, a sinner.  That’s it.  No flowery speeches.  No “don’t hate the player hate the game” speeches.  He simple asks God, of His mercy, to be merciful to his sinful self.

     No doubt the crowd expected Jesus to praise the Pharisee.  After all, the Pharisee fasts twice a week and gives a tenth of all his income.  The tax collector works for the oppressing government and is a known cheat and thief.  We, of course, know how Jesus often turns expectations on their heads.  Using a word with loaded meaning to us, Jesus says the tax collector went down to his home justified rather than the other.

     There are a couple reversals of expectations that fall beneath our radar.  The first is that Jesus describes a situation which caused the Pharisees to come into being way back when.  Two men are acting differently, who is closer to God’s will?  Notice, Jesus does not say either are sinless or holy or anything close to what God calls them to be.  Both should be glorifying God in the lives.  But, by comparison, the tax collector is acting and praying closer to God’s instruction than the Pharisee.  I bet some in Jesus’ audience snorted at the irony.  I am certain that Pharisees added this parable to the pile to fuel their hatred of Him and their determination to put Him to death, a trial which will see all their rules, and God’s instructions, set aside to get the desire result.

     The second big, and more important to us, reversal is the reminder that “the other” is loved by God, which means God is willing to extend to “the other” mercy and grace just as He extends them to us.  Neither we nor “the other” are deserving of God’s grace or blessings or anything good, but it is His good pleasure to be merciful to those who trust in Him, to those who seek Him, to those who know they are insufficient for their salvation or deliverance.  So often, we long to be compared relatively to others.  I give more time.  I give more money.  I pray more frequently.  I come to church more often.  We think that because we do things “more” than others, we are “more valuable” to God.  The great reversal is the reminder that all are equally valued, equally loved, by God.  God’s standard is God’s standard.  It is an absolute, not a relative value.  And to build on last week’s reminder, the more we wrestle with God the greater the danger that, because He is not dislocating our hip—to extend that analogy—the more He must value us and the things we value.

     How do we tell the difference in ourselves?  How do we navigate the challenge of falling prey to sin and to the world’s chorus that some are just better than others?  The highlight of the passage provides us with a great evaluator.  As one commentator blunted reminded me this week, pride preaches and teaches merit; God calls for compassion.  How do we respond to “the others” in life.  Do we tell them they need to work harder, to be better, to suck it up?  Or do we offer a helping hand or acknowledge their pain and their hurt?

     I know the danger of such a reminder today.  It is easy in light of all the blessings most of us have in this parish and in this area to have become convinced of one’s merit.  The world’s chorus is really a seductive siren’s song.  But against that cacophony of merit sings the Gospel of Christ.  None of us deserved God’s love.  None of us deserved the blessings He offers those who claim Him as Lord of their life.  But it is His good pleasure to deliver and redeem all those who claim Him Lord, all those who have died to self in the Sacrament we call Baptism, all those who come to this Table seeking the heavenly refreshment necessary to go back out into that world to do the work that He has given us to do, of His mercy!  That, my friends, is His promise.  And that we might know He has the power to redeem all our sufferings and all our sins, He raised the Teacher on that Third morning, teaching us that not even death can keep Him from fulfilling His promises.

     And what if, listening to me or, more significantly, listening to God you have discerned you are an articulator of merit in your life, a proponent of pride in your life?  Is there anything you can do?  Of course!  Our sins do not surprise Him.  Even when He was hanging on that Cross He know our sins and follies and willed Himself to stay there so that we, in turn, might be delivered and justified through Him.  And so, in that wonderful Sacrament where He promises to deliver us, He instructs us to repent and return to Him, to come again to this Table seeking His nourishment, and to once again be reminded of His unfailing love for us, that we might be fit humble heralds of His grace and His mercy, which alone truly delivers and redeems, to the world!

 

In His Peace,

Brian†