A Sermon for the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
November 9, 2014

 Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.  ²Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.  ³When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them;  ⁴but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.  ⁵As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept.  ⁶But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’  ⁷Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps.  ⁸The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’  ⁹But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’  ¹⁰And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. ¹¹Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’  ¹²But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’  ¹³Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. – Matthew 25:1-13

Are you waiting for the second coming of Jesus?

Anyone?

Well, I am. You don’t hear much conversation about it from mainline protestant churches, except maybe when we want to discredit the street preachers who claim the end is coming tomorrow at 4 o’clock. Maybe you don’t hear much about it because talking about waiting for Jesus to come again is too reminiscent of all the rapture talk that takes obscure Biblical imagery and turns it into a totally unbiblical theology. But I am waiting for Jesus to come again.

When I was a kid I used to play mind games with myself about when Jesus would come. Like I’m going to think about him coming back today, but since I’m thinking about it and no one knows the day or the hour, then he won’t come today. Or I would imagine what it would be like – flashes of light like a sunrise the whole world sees at once, or more like the first time Jesus came around – subtly, maybe already among us. Could it be that guy over there? While I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that any more, I’m still waiting for Jesus to come.

I’m not waiting to be dazzled by the glory or waiting for judgment for my enemies or waiting really for my own salvation to something better. I’m waiting for Jesus to come because this world is so deeply broken. And like the bridegroom in today’s parable, it is long into the night, long past time for God to come, and any reasonable person might assume he’d skipped out on the whole thing altogether.

After last Tuesday’s election some people are celebrating and others are picking up pieces, but so far I’ve heard no one promise on either side that they will save the world. You hear talk about international strategy but no one promising to once and for all solve the crisis in the Middle East. You hear about how best regulate big banks and how to create jobs, but no one promising to fix the underlying problem of human greed. You hear arguments about who should be allowed to get married, but no one promising to find a way to heal all the brokenness from relationships that fall apart. Because those promises are too far fetched even for politicians. We must engage the political process to work for peace and justice before and after an election, and great strides can be made in public policy, but finally at the end of the day we’re all humans and humans are going to find a way to mess things up. So yes, even if it sounds a little odd to our modern ears, I’m waiting for Jesus to come again.

In today’s parable, the bridegroom does finally show up, long into the night after all the waiting maidens have ended their slumber party and fallen asleep. The coming is swift and the party begins quickly. The door is shut and that’s that. The decisive coming to end all strife and violence, the decisive coming that we have all been longing for comes, but then we don’t like it when it happens because if we’re honest we want everything happy and pleasant and have a little wiggle room. We want to say, ok, sure, come on in late. Ok, sure, we’ll open the door again. Ok, maybe one more time. I think most of us aren’t quite ready to give up control of things ourselves. Most of us would still like the world run according to our rules. Even if those are rules about letting everyone in, the problem with that rule isn’t so much the sentiment behind it as it is that we’re not the ones who get to make the rules about how the kingdom of God works. We don’t get to decide when and how Jesus heals the world.

This is probably a good point at which to say two things this parable is not. It’s not an excuse for us to start making up rules about who gets in and who gets shut out. Because we like to draw boundaries that aren’t always so good, we’re better off making sure the door is open wide and the invitation is made clear. And I’m reasonably certain this parable is not about keeping our lamp oil to ourselves. Whatever its significance in the parable, in the context of the whole of the gospels, it is clearly not an injunction to keep things for ourselves, whether material things or even the tendency to hoard our own sense of how things ought to be.

But I think it is a parable that reminds us that things are quite beyond our control. You see, the labels are actually reversed in this story. The wise ones are those who did a cost-benefit analysis and planned the right amount of oil for the expected length of time and maybe even a little extra. They did everything according to plan. They did exactly what was prudent. The foolish ones are those who just grabbed up all the oil they could find for no logical reason whatsoever. The Bible calls it wise, but we call it imprudent. Here’s the thing – the kingdom of God simply isn’t about getting it right. It’s not about doing the right good works, or about living the right way, or giving away the right amount. It’s not about church membership, or standing in society. It’s not about wealth or good looks. It’s not about any system we can devise from logic. It’s more about stocking up on oil, keeping an eye out for God, and giving up on our plans, rules, and schedules. The kingdom of God is like a bridegroom who shows up impossibly late with no good excuse to speak of. The kingdom of God is like a group of people who were so excited for the banquet they lost all common sense and gathered in the abundance around them. The kingdom of God is like a bridegroom who finally at one time or another sets a firm boundary about what the kingdom is going to be about.

Perhaps this is really a parable of judgment on all the things we long to see come to an end. An end to all the careful calculations about who is better than who, or our written and unwritten rules about who gets food and shelter and respect. An end to all the carefully constructed ways we lift up some people over others. If this parable is really about Jesus coming again, then maybe the firmly shut door is the decisive victory over evil and death that we’re all longing for.

But reading this parable still leaves most of us with a nagging question – what if we’re the ones who get shut out? What if I’m the one who with all my calculations and attempts to control my life and our fate goes running off after something not important in comparison to the feast that is set. Even if we find ourselves shut out, we only have to keep reading to the next chapter in Matthew’s Gospel to realize that being shut out we find ourselves in the company of another one shut out of Jerusalem, abandoned by his followers, and hung on a cross. Someone reminded me after a recent sermon about another not dissimilar parable of judgment, that when we find ourselves shut out, that’s exactly where we find Jesus waiting. In the moment of being shut out we find the whole parable turned upside down: it is not us waiting for Jesus but Jesus who waits for us. God’s never ending light shining until we finally land ourselves hopeless and helpless at the foot of the cross.

So let’s wait together for the coming of Jesus. And lets do it with joy and abundance. Let’s do it with music, which we have in abundance today and thanks to Matthew Cron, our organist of 25 years, every Sunday. Let’s wait with generous hearts that open to others with compassion. Let’s see if we can catch a glimpse of the party happening here and now while we wait. And when the waiting is done, I think we’ll find we’ve already begun the celebration and find Jesus waiting for us with lamps lit and table set. Let us join the feast!

-Pastor Steven Wilco

All Saints Sunday
November 2, 2014

⁹After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.  ¹⁰They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
¹¹And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹²singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
¹³Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”  ¹⁴I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal ;they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
¹⁵For this reason they are before the throne of God,
and worship him day and night within his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
¹⁶They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
¹⁷for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, 
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” – Revelation 7:9-17

 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.  ²Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
⁵“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
⁶“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
⁷“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
⁸“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
⁹“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
¹⁰“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
¹¹“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account  ¹²Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. -Matthew 5:1-12

We’ve just had another Halloween. I’m sure many of you welcomed superheroes, witches, goblins, monsters, and movie characters at your door on Friday night. A night where it’s acceptable to try on a costume and pretend to be someone or something else. And while Halloween may have become mostly about candy, this kind of pretending in regular everyday play is something central to child development. Through imaginative play – taking on special roles or scenarios and playing make-believe – kids learn social skills, communication, problem-solving, and empathy. It helps to increase creativity and cognitive capacity. It might seem to adults like mere fantasy, but it is creating something powerfully real in the present, shaping who we are as people for the rest of our lives.

Part of our problem as we get older is that we too quickly, and some more quickly than others, are faced with too much of the reality of the world. Too often our imagination is squashed. The lucky among us are simply faced with the daily challenges of work and school, maintaining a roof over our heads and food on the table, navigating the challenge of relationships, and busy schedules with expectations that leave us feeling drained. The less lucky are faced with much worse – war, famine, extreme poverty, devastating mental or physical illness, violence, or abuse.

But ultimately it’s death – actual death and all the smaller losses we experience along the way – that squashes our freedom to imagine. We face the reality of death over and over again. If it isn’t the threat of death itself, it’s the grief of loss in all its forms large and small, the experience of powerlessness against the forces of the world around us, and the loss of hope. We easily lose the capacity for imagination, and along with it all the freedom to grow and develop as we would want into people filled with compassion and creativity. Without that imagination our faith is suffocated.

That’s part of what makes it hard for me sometimes to read the beatitudes. To read them requires a sense of imagination, the ability to reclaim that childlike ability to try on something different. My first reaction is to argue. Sure you can idealize poverty whether economic or spiritual, you can idolize those who try to work for peace and offer mercy in a world that has given up on the idea, you can talk about finding blessings in the midst of suffering, mourning, and even outright persecution. And all that is true. It happens. But frankly most of the time, poverty of spirit, mourning, persecution, and attempts at mercy and peacemaking are hard and ugly and they don’t feel much like a blessing. And most of the world doesn’t have the time of day for the people Jesus calls blessed. Our capacity to imagine another reality has been pushed down and boxed away after so many encounters with a harsh reality.

But today, All Saints Sunday, is at least in part about restoring imagination. An invitation to try on the costume of a saint. That’s what Jesus is doing in the beatitudes. To the people gathered on the hillside by the Sea of Galilee, he begins his most well-known sermon with the imagination of a new world order. Imagine he says, pretend for a moment as a child might, a world in which the poor in spirit – those who struggle to face each day who live with the feeling of defeat – imagine a kingdom where those people have a place. Imagine a world in which people who are mourning are not left alone because the rest of us can’t figure out what to say. Imagine a world in which peacemakers are lifted up instead of warlords. Imagine a world in which people who are pure of heart and merciful and who seek after righteousness have primary place. Imagine.

But the beatitudes don’t leave us only to imagine. And they don’t only leave us waiting for the coming day when God’s reality will rule completely over all people and all things living and dead, though that is the promise of the glorious vision in Revelation of the saints from all tribes, peoples, and tongues are gathered shouting “Salvation belongs to our God!” The beatitudes go even farther than that.

Because the Beatitudes invite us to live into that reality now. Like children who try on a costume and play house, we may only manage an approximation of all that God has in mind. We’ll get caught up short in all the moments we aren’t our best selves and neglect the very people Jesus is lifting up. We’ll get caught up short in the moments when we discount ourselves for being the very things Jesus lifts up. But in practicing what might at first seem difficult or beyond our grasp, God uses our dressing up in the beatitudes to generate the very thing God has in mind to begin with. What seems like fantasy begins to become the reality that God intends. With Jesus’ words we are transformed into people of the promised kingdom now and that blessedness becomes a reality for us and for this world here.

And so we will continue today with a meal – a meal that will require our godly imagination. It will only be a morsel of bread and a sip of wine. To an outsider it might at first seem like the mere fantasy of a meal. But by Christ’s presence that meal becomes not only a sign of what is to come, a sign of God’s salvation, a sign of our loved ones rejoicing now at the throne of God, but it also creates that very reality itself. By Christ’s power this morsel is the feast at the throne, it is the day of the Lord, the saints of all times and places are here, now, rejoicing with us. The reality of blessedness poured out by God. The reality of the kingdom that has been promised. The reality of the saints standing with us now.

And so with a taste of that kingdom we try on the costume of a saint. We feel at first perhaps like we’re only pretending. But in doing so God’s reality takes over and we become what we long to be – transformed by grace into a saint, called to stand amidst the blessed ones the world has long since disregarded, joining in the shouting and praying and singing around the throne of God: “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

 

            The greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. That should be straightforward enough, shouldn’t it? There are very few people in the church who would argue with the first and very few people anywhere who would argue with the second. Of course that is what we should do.

But it’s never as easy as that, is it? The four young people who will stand before you today to affirm their baptism know as well as I do that these commandments are easier said than done. In fact, if they didn’t learn anything else, I think this would be a good start for any life of faith – that God calls us to these two things – really one commandment with two sides – and that it’s never as easy as it sounds.

When we talked about these texts last week in their final confirmation class, we wrestled with what it actually means to do this. What if, for instance, our neighbor whom we are supposed to love isn’t loving his or her neighbor? How can and should we intervene? What if our neighbor is responsible for the death of another? Or responsible for the racist graffiti scribbled on UMass dorm doors two weeks ago? Or to pick up a theme from our adult forum, what does it mean to love our neighbor who is in economic or actual slavery to produce the devices that have become our constant companions? What about those times when you see a neighbor in need and you’re not quite sure how to help. Maybe it’s a situation where intervening will actually make things worse. Maybe it’s the question we always wrestle with about how best to help those who are panhandling on the street – do we put money in the cup, buy a sandwich and a cup of coffee, give the person a ride to the shelter, engage or not? What does it mean to love our neighbor there? Or what about the times that we find it hard to love ourselves, making the statement about loving our neighbor as ourselves a little pointless?

And loving God isn’t much clearer sometimes. Does it mean talking about God with friends and strangers or is it about living a life that leads by example and invites others to faith through our actions? Does it mean spoken prayers with carefully chosen words prayed at regular intervals throughout the day or silent, wordless prayers that emerge from the living of our lives? What does loving God mean when we sit down at the table with someone from another faith or no faith at all?

The point is that there isn’t a clear, once-and-for-all answer to any of those questions about how to love God and love our neighbor in the nitty-gritty mess we live every day. That’s part of why the church is in need of constant reformation – that is re-formation to love God and neighbor in every new place and time.

These four young people will promise in a few minutes to be a part of that ongoing reformation of the church learning to love God and neighbor. This specifically will be their promise: to continue in the covenant God made with them in holy baptism:

to live among God’s faithful people,

to hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper,

to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed,

to serve all people, following the example of Jesus,

and to strive for justice and peace in all the earth.

I get nervous every time I invite people to promise that – because it’s more than we can do. It’s more than we can promise. I assure all those about to make that promise – new members, parents of those about to be baptized, and confirmands all – that we do not do it alone but ask for God’s help and guidance as well as the prayers and support of the community.

For an image that develops what that help, support, and guidance looks like we turn not to 16^th century Germany, which would be a more traditional place to go on this reformation Sunday, but to the British nobility of the past and present. You see anytime a nobleman or noblewoman gets a gift of land from the king or queen, that nobleperson comes before the ruler and pledges support. As I understand it, the nobleperson clasps his or her hands together as if in prayer, and the ruler encloses his or her hands over the nobleperson’s hands. A sort of double prayer posture. As the pledge of loyalty is made the more powerful one holds the hands of the less powerful. Seemingly in recognition that the power to be present in the first place is granted by the king or queen as well as that the power to fulfill the pledge is on the foundation of the ruler’s ability to hold them in their promise.

So it is when any of us affirm our baptismal promises, or even when any of us speaks the creed or prays a prayer or sings a hymn or anthem. We hold out our hands in prayer hoping to love as we ought but it only comes in response to and by the power of the God who calls us. Today is not so much about the confirmands’ promises. Though they have worked hard in their learning, have thought deeply about what they promise today, and are amazing people of faith, today is first and foremost about God’s renewing God’s promise made at baptism and our opportunity to celebrate and surround that in prayer.

As we do that, each of us celebrates that same promise, both our renewal of intention to live in love for God and neighbor and more importantly in the power of the promise God makes to us. With each hope and prayer and promise Sunday after Sunday and every day in between, that it is God who holds our hands in doing so. It is God holding us when we pray. God reaching out and clasping our hands together, enfolded in the grasp of the divine, when we cannot even bring them together ourselves. God holding the neighbor as well as us, uniting our hopes and prayers and promises spoken and unspoken with those of our neighbors, even the ones we cannot manage to love.

It is not easy – this baptismal life, this always renewing church, this call to love God and neighbor. But it is washed and watered by the font, fed and nourished at the table. It is God holding us beginning to end even when we cannot hold ourselves. Come today to be renewed. Pray with these young people for all that their life of faith will entail and renew your own commitment of faith, as well. Because this water brings God’s hands around ours fulfilling the promise made to us in baptism: that this water is our life and our death and our resurrection.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 ¹⁵Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.  ¹⁶So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.  ¹⁷Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”  ¹⁸But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius.  ²⁰Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?”  ²¹They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  ²²When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away. – Matthew 22:15-22

I like to organize things. I really like to organize things. I’ve always loved office supplies – paper clips to group together like papers that might at some point need to be reorganized. Color coded folders for various filing systems. Accordion folders and post it tabs. Tools to keep everything in its place. I have a memory of being about 7 or 8 on a teacher workday being given free reign to reorganize my mother’s filing cabinet in her classroom, where in the busyness of teaching things had been stuffed hurriedly in the drawers. I loved it. At home our spices are arranged in two neat rows on shelves above our stove in alphabetical order. Everything in its place.

It would appear on first reading today’s gospel that Jesus is sorting the world into two very neat categories. Recognizing an intentional trap by the Pharisees about whether to pay the unjust taxes being levied upon them by the empire of the day, Jesus responds with this well known line about giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. One could run with that statement and start dividing the world into neat little categories. I come to church, say my prayers, and am nice to other people, maybe doing some service projects and volunteering for a church ministry. That’s the God side. Then I go off to work or to school and to vote and to pay taxes, spending money as I see fit.  That’s the everything else side. That appeals very much to my love for putting things into neat categories.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s at all what Jesus is saying. Rather than a teaching about what belongs to whom, this is a squirrelly answer to a squirrelly question by the Pharisees. Jesus has cleverly defeated them at their own game – neither supporting the 1^st century Palestine practice of extortion in the form of government taxes nor sticking his foot in his mouth in such a way that gives them grounds to have him arrested for refusing the tax of the empire. A non-answer really. Far from clear-cut and far from keeping things in simple boxes.

You see, we confess week after week that everything belongs to God. Absolutely everything, right down the image of the emperor on the coin in Jesus’ hand and the emperor himself. And that’s all well and good until we realize that God is God of something we’d rather not be associated with or when God takes ownership of something we’d like to keep to ourselves. It’s all well and good until God starts messing with our carefully organized way of life.

In our first reading from Isaiah God chooses Cyrus to be God’s anointed one. That is, God chooses Cyrus to be a messiah, the same word that will later be used about Jesus. God chooses the leader of an empire to be a means of salvation for the people of Israel. I’m not suggesting he was another Jesus, but the language is pretty clear – God is using the things of Caesar to accomplish the things of God.

But if God can use the powers of the world that we think are actually our enemies, then what? God is once again breaking barriers, but not just barriers that we want to break down, also breaking some walls we’d rather keep just as they are. If God can use someone like Cyrus, then what? If God can use the Roman Empire as a tool in the encounter between Jesus and his detractors, what else could be possible? Is God at work in Iraq and Syria and Ukraine? Can God be at work through ISIS or Assad or Putin?

I know that I don’t know enough to have the right answer about how we ought to deal with those situations as a nation state, but I do know that the people we’ve labeled as enemies, people who are genuinely doing some terrible things, even evil things – they belong to God. They bear the image of God as much as you and I do. The coin Jesus held up for the Pharisees bore the image of the god of their empire, but as he looked the Pharisees in the eye, the ones who would in the same week finally trap him and bring him to the cross, he saw there the image of God. And that just makes life a little bit messier.

But while we’re at it, God makes a lot of other things messy, too – the ministry of the church for one. God’s barrier breaking does not let us come to church on Sunday looking for a nice experience that reinforces what we already like and already think. Instead it calls us to challenge one another to be constantly breaking down our walls – whether they are walls between races or classes or different religions. It utterly disorganizes the things we put into carefully laid out boxes. It disrupts our plans and calls us to difficult choices in the way we live our lives as Christians, not just when it comes to clearly defined church time. It forces us reexamine our own role in the empires we participate in moment by moment and not just when we come to church for worship or sit in a committee meeting in the parlor.

We enter this mess every Sunday when we come to the part of our worship we call the offering. Too often our language about giving slips into organizational language. What we put in the plate, those things that in one form or another bear the symbols of our empire, whether it’s a little or a lot can become simply putting aside what we believe to be God’s share. Filing away a portion of our paycheck into the “God” envelope. But if that’s all it was, we wouldn’t bother making it a part of worship.

We make it a part of worship because the act of giving – whether it’s a little or a lot or sometimes nothing at all in the monetary sense – becomes a moment that disorganizes our carefully laid out categories. What I give to support the work of the church is my reminder to myself that not just what goes in the plate belongs to God, but that all I have belongs to God. That God lays claim to how every dollar is spent all week. And to every hour that gets spent. And the way every gift and talent is used or not used. The offering in worship is our moment to pray that all that we are and all that we have and all that we encounter is God’s, including the empires of which we are a part – every last bit of our lives. So you may want to think twice about participating in the offering in worship today whether physically putting something in the offering plate or not, because participating in that moment may actually disrupt our carefully organized lives.

We offer up our very selves as ones stamped with the image of God, trusting that even though it calls us to difficult tasks and makes a mess of our carefully constructed categories that it also lays a foundation for our lives. If it were up to us and our carefully organized divisions, sooner or later we would find ourselves on the wrong side of the walls we’ve created. But instead God lays claim to us not just when we sit in church and not just when we behave like nice people and do good things. If even those overcome by evil still bear the image of God, if even the enemy rulers can be the anointed ones of God, then we, too, even in our darkest moments when we know we have messed up or when we feel we cannot go on, then, too, is God claiming us – our whole selves with all our good and evil wrapped up together. And for that maybe we can put up with the seemingly disorganized mess that comes with a God who lets just about anyone in.

Pastor Steven Wilco

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying:  ²The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.  ³He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come.  ⁴Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’  ⁵But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business,  ⁶while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. ⁷The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city.  ⁸Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy.  ⁹Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’  ¹⁰Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.
¹¹But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe,  ¹²and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless.  ¹³Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’  ¹⁴For many are called, but few are chosen.” – Matthew 22:1-14

At least some of you are still thinking about weeping and gnashing of teeth and the closing of the parable, “Many are called, few are chosen.” And about the part where the king murders all his friends. And at least some of you would like me to tell you what this wedding robe is all about. But the violence and the strange ending in this parable aren’t clear to me either and there’s pretty much no consensus among scholars about any kind of wedding robe custom in ancient Jerusalem.

But what is clear to me is that the king is throwing a party. A big one. With tables full of prime rib and pacific salmon and lamb chops and surely a scrumptious vegetarian option, too. There is fine, well-aged wine prepared. The tables are set with fine silver and the best china and crystal. I suspect there is live music lined up and the whole room is decorated. No expense has been spared. When you’re the king in a parable there is no such thing as expense.

And there is no expectation except that you come and come to have fun. The first invitees are far too caught up in their own stuff. Some are simply too busy to come. Understandable, perhaps. We all know what it is to be too busy to stop and enjoy a party. And perhaps we all know the twinge of regret when we realize later that the work could have waited and we missed quite a party. But some of the invitees actually seize and kill the messengers. Pestered by invitations the messenger catches them on a bad day and they lose it. The sheer absurdity of it meant perhaps to highlight that turning down an invitation to this kind of a party is simply bizarre.

But the king is determined to have a party. The king will have a celebration even if his friends aren’t willing to show up. So he sends more messengers out to drag people in off the streets. People who can’t afford fine dining and people who maybe don’t have enough to eat. People who are afraid of the king or who consider him to be utterly removed from their world. People who don’t know one another and who quite certainly won’t be able to return the favor. And the party was always going to be free for its guests, but especially so now that the guests are people who couldn’t afford it anyway.

Now we could stop the parable here and I imagine that intellectually we would all nod our heads and say, yes, of course God’s free gift of grace to everyone, especially the poor folks off the streets. But frankly at a gut level I think that’s quite enough of a challenge for one parable. Because more often than not I think we’re the ones so caught up in ourselves that we can’t be bothered with the party. And if we’re honest, even if up here we get it, in here sometimes we aren’t so ready for a truly open door that lets just anyone in. I think we’re probably with the religious leaders listening to this parable challenge us for the ways we are committed to things that do not have anything to do with God’s celebration of life.

But the parable does not stop there. Because we have this crazy business about the wedding robe. Now it seems that every person but one has managed to get some fancy clothes on. Given that most of these people weren’t planning ever to attend a royal banquet, much less attend one today, I think it’s an assumption within the parable, even if it wasn’t a known custom, that the people were given wedding robes. Perhaps this king is so determined to have a grand party that when the people start coming in off the street he raids the entire royal wardrobe til every last guest has a piece of finery.

Can you imagine the scene? A room full of mismatched people of every age and class. All of them wearing the king’s finery, but wearing it more like an ill-fitting Halloween costume than as someone who is used to dressing up. Feasting on food they can’t even identify but which tastes delicious, maybe some even getting tipsy at the wine. Everyone whispering to one another and then giggling then laughing out loud at the sheer absurdity of it all. This is a party for the record books.

But this one person seems to be without a robe. We could speculate about why…perhaps he doesn’t feel worthy. Perhaps he has a disdain for finery. Perhaps he wandered in and hoped to crash the party. Maybe he was one of the first invited but didn’t feel the current company was worth donning the finery. Whatever the reason he’s not participating in the party and he refuses to respond to the king. So he gets thrown out. Or rather, I think, the king says, “Fine if you’re going to sit here and create your own hell all by yourself in the middle of this party you might as well go join your friends out on the street.”

All of the king’s actions from the beginning have been to make this party happen and to fill up the house at all costs. If the king is consistent, then throwing this man out comes from the same motivation. It seems to me that whatever the guest’s reason for not wearing the robe, this man simply refuses to join the party like everyone else. And one wonders if he’d given any answer at all if the king might have found a way to work it out. But instead the man is silent. The king will simply not tolerate anything that gets in the way of the party.

As we recall that this parable is directed at the skeptical religious leaders, it’s probably worth considering the way that we as insiders of the church need to hear this message. I wonder how many things we get caught up in that keep us from enjoying the party. What do we do that keeps us from celebrating together? What do we do that keeps us from throwing open the doors to welcome as many people as possible to the party? What do we do that keeps our focus small and distracts us from the overwhelming outpouring of love that God has for us?

It’s a genuine question as we move forward together as a congregation and as we as individuals live into the fullness of life God has planned for us. How can we channel our energy to participate in overflowing generosity, in unlimited welcome, and in living together in the grand party that God has in mind?

It’s a challenging question, and one we will need to wrestle with over and over again. But in the meantime we gather again today at this feast at this table. Set with finery, laden with abundant bread and wine, a celebration to which you are invited. A celebration that clothes us in Christ’s love. A celebration that draws us deeper into God’s overflowing celebration for all the earth. Come, let’s have a party!

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Sermon for Sunday, September 28, 2014
16th Sunday after Pentecost
by Pastor Steven Wilco 

²³When he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” ²⁴Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. ²⁵Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ²⁶But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” ²⁷So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
²⁸What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ ²⁹He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. ³⁰The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. ³¹Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³²For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him. – Matthew 21:23-32

I’m resistant to today’s Gospel lesson. I’m resistant because it seems to be about making sure you do the right things, and, well, that gets tiring trying to do that all the time. And how the heck do we figure out what we’re supposed to do in a world where things aren’t always so clear cut. And I’m resistant because I’m a good Lutheran who is a little wary when Jesus starts talking about doing good works. I’m much more comfortable with something more explicit about grace.  And I’m resistant because, well, my resistance puts me in the same category as the chief priests and the elders of the people in this story, and in the gospel stories that’s usually not a good thing. I’m with them in just wanting to say, “No!” to Jesus.

Now I’m inclined to believe that many of these leaders were doing their best to lead the people through a complex and challenging time in the history of Judaism. And while I’m sure there were some people who abused power and let themselves get caught up in perpetuating the institution, I want to be clear that they do not represent all of Judaism in the 1^st century. But the point the gospel writer is trying to make is that these chief priests and elders are a little perturbed at Jesus.

He has after all, just come in and thrown over a somewhat logical if out of control system of money-changing and sacrificial animal selling in the temple courts. He’s been walking about teaching and healing and drawing crowds in a potentially politically tense time in the city of Jerusalem. So the chief priests and elders of the peopel do the only thing they can think to do, they ask Jesus by whose authority he does these things, which is really a more polite way of saying what young children are prone to say to one another: “I don’t have to do what you say ‘cause you’re not the boss of me.”

Now one only says this when one is really out of more logical options. If they agreed with Jesus, they wouldn’t be resisting. And if they had any logical argument based in scripture or tradition, you’d think maybe they’d pull that out instead. I think they throw out this question about authority because they know deep down that there’s something to all that Jesus has to say, it’s just that it’s hard work to live it out. It’s easier to say, “no.” Like many of us, I suspect, they are feeling like they already have too much on their plates and doing any more, really living out this way of life that Jesus proposes, they know they ought to, but finding the energy is more than they can muster.

They know as well as we do what it is that God really asks of us. To put aside our selfish ambition and our sometimes selfish demands for the sake of the community. To go out of our way to care for those in need. To share generously for the sake of others from our possessions and our incomes. To welcome people even when they make us feel uncomfortable. To live more simply that others may simply live. All that love your neighbor as yourself stuff.

We know that, and we say it. Sometimes we live it out. And sometimes we even live it out with a spirit of generosity. But if you’re like me, sometimes you say it on Sunday morning and find yourself later in the day living in a different way. Jesus’ invitation to discipleship is hard stuff. And we already lead busy lives. It’s easier to say, “no,” with our words or our actions or both.

And here we are at Jesus’ story about the man with two sons. One who says he won’t do the work, but who later goes and does it, and one who says he’ll do the work who later doesn’t. They all seem in agreement that the one who does the work is the preferred option, though I’m pretty convinced that neither is really what the father in the story would like. But that’s us – people who sometimes say the right things and don’t follow through, people who resist the call of God, but sometimes find ourselves caught up doing God’s work in our daily lives in ways we didn’t even realize we were doing. And trying to do it all seems exhausting, so sometimes we’re the third son, who doesn’t say or do the right thing.

That’s how we end up back here over and over again to confess before God and one another that we have failed. We have failed to do as we said we would. We have failed to speak the commitment even when we carry it out. We are too full with other things, paying attention to all the other things to which we grant authority in our lives: money, success, self-promotion, even comfort and ease. Things which in and of themselves are not bad, but which can easily take control over our lives.

And that’s what Jesus comes to disrupt. Jesus could have answered their “You’re not the boss of me!” statement with something along the lines of “Because God said so,” which might very well be true but isn’t going to make them any more amenable to living out God’s call to love and serve one another. Instead Jesus asks them a question he knows will make them think about who it is they are spending their time serving. The question traps them because there is no way to answer the question in a way that looks good in front of the crowd. It reveals that their energy has gone into serving popularity, success, and self-preservation.            You know what it is for you that claims your time and energy, and maybe you even see the ways God is calling you to make a small shift towards a more life-giving authority.

Yet we hear in this place, not God’s condemnation, but God’s invitation. Whether we come ready to serve, or whether we find ourselves, despite our resistance, serving God even after we’ve said we won’t, the invitation is here for us. From a God who is emptied before us on the cross, an invitation to listen to a life-giving authority, an invitation to feast together at this table. And an invitation to a life lived in loving God and neighbor as ourselves. To our repeated “no” in thought, word, and deed, God’s response is always, “Yes!” And so we end with these words from Walter Brueggemann:

You are the God who is simple, direct, clear with us and for us.
You have committed yourself to us.
You have said yes to us in creation,
yes to us in our birth,
yes to us in our baptism,
yes to us in our awakening this day.

But we are of another kind,
more accustomed to “perhaps, maybe, we’ll see,’
left in wonderment and ambiguity.

We live our lives not back to your yes,
but out of our endless “perhaps.”

So we pray for your mercy this day that we may live yes back to you,
yes with our time,
yes with our money,
yes with our sexuality,
yes with our strength and with our weakness,
yes to our neighbor,
yes and no long “perhaps.”

In the name of your enfleshed yes to us,
even Jesus who is our yes into your future. Amen.

From Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth

¹⁵If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. ¹⁶But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. ¹⁸Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. ¹⁹Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. ²⁰For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” – Matthew 18:15-20

Henri Nouwen tells a story in the epilogue to his book “In the Name of Jesus.” Having served for more than 20 years in the academic world of Harvard, Nouwen felt called to work as a chaplain for a community of special needs adults near Toronto. After a number of years there he was invited to make a presentation at a large dinner in Washington, DC. As he prepared he became aware that he should take someone with him. He joyfully took with him Bill, a member of the community he served. Nouwen describes seeing the ways Bill approached the trip with child-like wonder and excitement. They were going to make a presentation together. Nouwen assumed this meant that he would make the presentation and this man from his community was along for the ride.

But when it came time for the presentation, Bill quite on his own also got up from his seat and stood beside Nouwen at the podium. As Nouwen finished a page of his remarks, Bill carefully took it and laid it facedown on a table nearby. Bill occasionally interjected supportive comments, which though perhaps unnerving at first brought life to Nouwen’s remarks. Over the applause at the end, Bill asked, “Can I say something now?” Nouwen’s mind began racing, “Oh, how am I going to handle this? He might start rambling and create an embarrassing situation.” But quite the opposite happened when Bill replied with a touching, heartfelt, and remarkably brief few sentences that brought the presentation to a close quite beautifully. This was followed by Bill, quite to his own and others’ delight, becoming the life of the party in the mingling that followed.

Let me read you the closing paragraphs in Henri Nouwen’s own words:

“As we flew back to Toronto together, Bill looked up from the word-puzzle book that he takes with him wherever he goes and said, ‘Henri, did you like our trip?’

“’Oh, yes’ I answered, ‘it was a wonderful trip and I am so glad you came with me.’

“Bill looked at me attentively and then said, “And we did it together, didn’t we?’

“Then I realized the full truth of Jesus’ words, ‘Where two or three meet in my name, I am among them’ (Matthew 18:20). In the past, I had always given lectures, sermons, addresses, and speeches by myself. Often I had wondered how much of what I had said would be remember. Now it daned on me that most likely much of what I said would not be long remembered, but that Bill and I doing it together would not easily be forgotten. I hoped and prayed that Jesus, who had sent us out together and had been with us all during the journey, would have become really present to those who had gathered in the Clarendon Hotel in Crystal City.

“As we landed, I said to Bill ‘Bill, thanks so much for coming with me. It was a wonderful trip, and what we did, we did together in Jesus’ name.’ And I really meant it.” (Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus, 1989 Crossroad Publishing, p. 100-101).

That’s what this passage is really all about. I think we like to focus on the lines that direct us about what to do when someone sins against us. It’s nice to have a plan when we feel wronged. But all of that is really about how to stay in community with one another. Because community is what it’s all about.

And not just because it’s nice to be around other people, and because work is easier together, but because none of us has the truth alone. This verse at the end of our gospel reading is one of the most commonly referenced verses in church life – as a reminder that even if we have small numbers we are still ok, because Jesus joins us. That’s all well and good, but it’s not some magic formula, as if somehow Jesus is waiting for two or maybe three if the first two aren’t so with it, to suddenly appear.

I think rather it’s what Nouwen discovered in his presentation with Bill: that God’s truth cannot be revealed by a single individual. As much as any one of us wants to think we have it all figured out, no one can go it alone. If we want to do anything in Jesus’ name we’re going to have to do it together.

The problem is that where two or three are gathered there is inevitably going to be conflict. Sometimes it’s outright fighting, but conflict isn’t always violent. In Nouwen’s story there’s conflict between Henri’s idea of doing the presentation together and Bill’s idea of doing the presentation together. They don’t actually fight about it, but it’s a conflict born out of difference.

Today’s passage, which has deeply rooted community as its core, lays out a plan for us to address this conflict. And it’s very practical, common sense advice. Go and speak to the person alone first. Not just to prevent anyone being embarrassed but because both sides might learn something by talking. It might be revealed that what one party thinks of as a one-sided problem is actually two-sided.

And then if that doesn’t work, take some witnesses. Collective wisdom. And if it’s still disruptive to the whole community, take it there. And if finally it really cannot be resolved, treat the person as a tax-collector or a sinner. You know, like Jesus did, eating with them, talking with them, inviting them into ministry as a disciple. Treat them as someone who needs to be welcomed back into the fold. Because whatever you think of that person, that person has something to reveal about God in the midst of community.

This is especially important for us to remember at this time of year when our community in particular is forming and re-forming. When we go back to school to be part of classes full of people we like and people we don’t like. We are reminded of what it means to live in community with people who are different, who keep to different schedules and who come from different communities. As a congregation we are always welcoming new people and saying goodbye to others. It’s a time ripe for conflict between differing attitudes and opinions, and this passage reminds us first that there is a healthy way to address those and second, and more importantly, that God is fully revealed only in that community of difference.

All of us need someone like Bill to interrupt our carefully laid plans to remind us we haven’t got it all figured out. Bill couldn’t have gotten up and communicated that presentation alone without the love and care and support of his community and of his friend standing with him. And Henri Nouwen, as brilliant as many consider him to be, could not have effectively done alone what he and Bill did together, no matter how different their ideas about giving the presentation. I pray our carefully laid plans for how things ought to be will be interrupted by one another, by the Spirit at work. Because it’s really all about the truth of God revealed in diversity. It’s about the truth of our brokenness that results in conflict and our incompleteness when it comes to sharing God with the world. And most importantly it’s about the truth of God’s forgiveness and love that folds us all into the arms of grace together.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

Funeral Sermon for Ralph Junius Harris, Sr.
August 31, 2014

 ⁹After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
¹¹And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,¹²singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
¹³Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” ¹⁴I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal ;they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
¹⁵For this reason they are before the throne of God,
and worship him day and night within his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
¹⁶They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
¹⁷for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, 
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” – Revelation 7:9-17

Today we sing. We sing because Junius sang. We sing because we believe that Junius still sings. We sing because he explicitly asked for much music to be a part of this service. But mostly, today, in this moment, in this assembly, we sing because Christ has conquered death once and for all.

But singing is hard. It’s a craft that Junius spent a lifetime cultivating both in himself and in the communities that he touched as a teacher of music. It takes lots of practicing to sing well. It takes physical, mental, and emotional strength to do it. But singing is especially hard at a funeral. Because we who must face the future without Junius among us are grieving. Even as we gather here to affirm the power that God has to defeat death and raise even the dead to new life, loss and grief take so much out of us that singing is especially challenging.

But we do not sing alone. All of us have come here to grieve and support one another, and especially to support the Harris family. And we sing together with the whole company of heaven. As we read from Revelation, as the great multitude from every nation, tribe, and tongue gather around the throne of God, a crowd that in the wonder of God’s time already includes Junius and all of us together, a sight that seems to amaze even the angels of heaven, the angels can do nothing but fall down and sing: “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen!” Praising God for the gathering of saints together. Praising God for a love so strong it conquers death.

The never-ceasing love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord was the foundation of Junius’s song. It was, I think many of us observed, present in his signing – an awareness that his talent was a gift from God to be shared for God’s glory. An awareness that allowed that gift to flourish and to communicate to those around him the love of God that goes even beyond the grave. And the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord was the foundation of Junius’s song in a broader sense, too. The root of his work, his service to others, his persistence in matters of equality and justice, his love for his family. The love of God in Christ Jesus was his song.

And today the love of God in Christ Jesus poured out for us is the foundation of our song. It is the foundation as we proclaim the joy of gathering at the river of baptism, the beautiful, the beautiful river of God, and of Jesus, our priceless treasure, and as we sing of God, our help in ages past and hope for years to come. It is that love that weeps with us as we mourn Junius’s absence and smiles and laughs with us when we remember with joy having Junius among us. We can sing even today, supported by the song of heaven, because that love still holds Junius in death, and that love has promised to raise him with us on the last day.

When we look today and see only death, when today we are reminded of its finality by the presence of Junius’s ashes, we read about the vision that God already sees of resurrection. We read that as we stare death in the face, the angels of heaven already sing rejoicing to see the resurrection that we have not yet seen. So today we sing in the already and not yet of the promise. A tension in which Junius lived, and a tension in which we, too, are called to live.

Junius was committed to working for equality and integration from the first integrated wedding at their church to his years living among the community he served in Germany. And so we sing because that work has come so far in Junius’ lifetime, and we sing because that work is so far from being done, now to be carried on by others.

Junius was in many ways a servant to others – as a teacher, parent, friend. Many in this congregation remember his friendly welcome to them. This crowd is a testament to his service to those around him. So we sing today because God has already shown us signs of life shared among us. And we sing today because that work must still continue.

Junius in recent years gathered with us at this table, hungry and thirsty for the promise of God’s bread and wine. And before he and Bettijean came to this place he gathered at many a similar table in other churches to be fed and nourished by God’s promise. So we sing because Junius is not physically present to join us at this table today. And we sing because this bread and wine today and every time we gather at this table connects us with all the saints who feast already at the fullness of God’s table.

The days ahead will continue to bring awareness of the grief among us. The pain of loss will change in strange ways and catch us by surprise as we learn to live with what comes next. But we trust that today’s song, the song of the community gathered here, the song of all heaven rejoicing, will carry us forward even in the moments when one or many of us cannot bring forth the words to sing.

So we sing today because Junius has died. But more importantly we sing today because in Christ Junius is alive, because Christ has conquered death, because resurrection is God’s promise for us. Because nothing can stop Junius’s song or ours – not even death itself – because it is the song of all heaven and earth: “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen!”

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

12th Sunday after Pentecost
August 31, 2014

²¹From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. ²²And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” ²³But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
²⁴Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?
²⁷For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. ²⁸Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” – Matthew 16:21-28

 

Today’s gospel reading is about the difference between Jesus and Superman. Now there are some similarities. They both like to save people. They both do some superhuman things to help people. They both have some secrecy around their true identities. And they have some unusual birth narratives. But they’re actually pretty different. Now all that may seem obvious, but I think we spend a lot of energy wishing Jesus was superman.

I think it would be pretty easy for Peter and the rest of the disciples to go on thinking that Jesus was there to rescue them from the bad stuff. They’d seen the miracles and they liked this guy. Peter just called him the Messiah, the anointed one, the one chosen to save. But Jesus has another plan in mind. A plan that involves submitting to the cross and calling his followers, the disciples and us, to pick up our cross and follow. We, like Peter, don’t want to go there. We’d rather have someone who swoops in and fixes everything. Someone who is more or less impervious to all that earth has to offer in the way of destruction and violence. But despite what we might want in some moments, here are 5 reasons Jesus is better than Superman.

1. Superman comes to fix things for us, but Jesus enters the problem with us. We want the quick fix, the miraculously unexplained cure. But instead we have a God who enters the world to experience what our suffering is like. When miracles and cures and our own abilities fail, as our experience tells us they all eventually do, what are we left with? We have a God who still walks alongside us. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t desire a full and abundant life for us, but it does mean God is willing to go to great lengths to be in relationship with us through whatever good and bad comes our way. And that seems like the greater gift.

2. Superman inspires us to be strong, but Jesus calls us to accept our weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Peter is adamant that Jesus should not suffer what is about to come, but Jesus tries to help all of them see that salvation is actually found in the midst of and out of suffering. Taking up the cross is being who we are as we are and using even our weaknesses to the glory of God. Taking up the cross is accepting our limitations as human beings and engaging in the challenging work of ministry anyway. Jesus doesn’t tell us to hide our weakness or even to fight our whole lives to overcome it. Instead Jesus calls us to name our weaknesses and offer them at the cross to be transformed for the sake of the world. Through the cross death becomes life, and weakness becomes power for others.

3. Superman wants to keep us from suffering, but Jesus calls us to do the things that make us vulnerable to suffering. This might at first sound harsh, but I think that has much to do with the way we think about Jesus’ suffering on the cross. If we think about it in a Mel Gibson’s passion kind of way, in which the more suffering the better for us – the more Jesus takes on of our sins, the more pain Jesus bears the more we are redeemed. Too often this passage about taking up your cross is used to say to people just buck up and take it – be Superman strong when faced with big challenges and life’s little annoyances. It’s been used to perpetuate abusive relationships and to trivialize serious suffering in the world.  If that’s the case then what we want is a God who keeps us from suffering.

But if what we see instead is a God so committed to uncompromising love that in Jesus he will submit to the pain the world inflicts for that commitment, then what we see is not a glorification of suffering but a commitment to love. The call to pick up the cross is the call to love in a genuine way from our Romans reading: “…hold fast to what is good; ¹⁰love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹²Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. ¹³Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another…” To pick up one’s cross is to accept that the world will not understand and will in fact try to eliminate love that crosses boundaries. What is revealed to Peter and the disciples in this passage is not a command to suffer, but a commitment to transformative love that may very well cause us deep pain and sadness along the way.

4. Superman tries to keep us from dying, but Jesus leads the way into death for us. As much as a part of us wants to be immortal, impervious to anything that might bring us down, the reality is that all of us will face death. This afternoon we will gather in worship to remember Junius, who has gone ahead of us in death. As we gather this morning Wanda, a long-time member of Immanuel, is in hospice care. Others face serious illnesses. Even the young and healthy among us will face death one day. We do our best to try to deny it. We pretend we can be Superman. But Jesus lives in the reality of the world. The reality that includes death. Rather than deny death, Jesus enters into it and by his death ushers in the promise of resurrection. Jesus’ commitment to the cross despite our objections is to lead the way that all of us must go in order to find resurrection, not through strength that we must gather ourselves, but in weakness – in our weakest moment – Jesus leads the way even there.

5. Superman manages to save some people, and inspires others to good deeds. But Jesus manages by the cross to save the world. Not by fulfilling all human expectation, but by taking on human form and facing human cruelty for the sake of loving all people. By the cross, by the commitment to loving us in our fragile, dying, brokenness to the very end, Jesus saves not a few, but all. Everything.

So we reverence the cross in our worship not to glorify suffering but to remind us of the love represented by God’s self-emptying for us. We eat and drink today not in a morbid ritual of sacrifice, but in a feast that feeds our human bodies with bread and wine and our human selves with the body and blood of the one who took on the cross for the sake of a love for the world so unsettling that we could not handle it.

Superman is great. Really. I don’t mean to diminish the importance of helping others using whatever your superpowers might be. But at the end of the day, the God we have goes much deeper than that. A God who is willing to enter our lives to be in relationship with us. A God who will remind us what we need even when we are distracted by what we want. A God, we are about to sing, whose glory is in humility, whose power is in weakness, whose beauty is in rejection, whose wisdom is in folly, and whose living is through dying. Thanks be to God.

-Pastor Steven Wilco

 

Sunday, August 24, 2014
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.
³For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, ⁵so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. -Romans 12:1-8

¹³Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” ¹⁶Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”²⁰Then he sternly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. – Matthew 16:13-20

There are some moments in life that simply change everything. Moments that pull us in and spin us off in another direction. The events that go down in world history like the rise and fall of Rome, the Norman conquest, the signing of the Magna Carta, or Martin Luther’s 95 Theses and the start of the Reformation. More recently events like Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, and the 9/11 attacks have become markers of an era in our country’s shared experience. And we have much more personal events that shape our lives – births and deaths in the family, marriages, major life transitions. Some moments have the power to mark transitions and change the future in really radical ways.

My question is whether today’s Gospel reading is such a moment. Jesus is taking a private moment with his closest followers and checks to see what they’ve been hearing about him from the crowds. What are people saying to them that they might not be sharing directly with Jesus? The others share some safe answers. Like others before him he has been a teacher and a miracle worker. He is, rightly, the embodiment of some of the previous greats among the prophets of Israel. But Peter has something different to say. Something Jesus, and probably Peter, too, if we knew what he was thinking, can only attribute to the action of God at work in him. Peter confesses his belief that Jesus is the Messiah, Son of the Living God.

And this moment does seem to change the course of the gospel story. This story in a number of the gospels is caught up in the turning point toward Jerusalem, toward the cross. Up until now Jesus has been a special child, a promising teacher, and one who manages to work miracles. He would be an exceptional religious man, but one in a long line of other religious figures. But with this confession and with some of the events that follow soon after, Jesus turns with his disciples toward Jerusalem. With this confession on the table, Jesus begins to direct their attention to what is about to take place. And that is what sets Jesus apart from the others, that is what makes him more than just another teacher and healer. This confession, regardless of whose mouth is chosen to utter it, is part of what begins to shift the gospel narratives toward their life-giving and death-defeating ending.

But I’m even more interested in whether this is one of those moments that changes everything for Peter. Sure, many of us know the tradition that Peter became the first bishop of Rome and that his successors are the ones upon whom the church is built. Take it or leave it, it doesn’t fundamentally answer the question for me of how that changed Peter’s everyday life, at least in the moment. We’ll read next week in our gospel reading about how Peter is quickly back to misunderstanding and speaking too soon when he confronts Jesus about what exactly it means to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. So it’s not like this confession suddenly means he has it all figured out.

But I’m interested in whether this moment is one that changes Peter mostly because I want to know how it changes us. Because 2,000 years later we stand in the tradition of Peter to confess every week in worship that we believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. And I want to know how it’s supposed to change us. Is that confession for us one of those life-changing moments?

You see, I think most of the time we’re more like Peter, saying it in a moment of boldness and then not quite sure what to do with it later. Not quite ready to take the risk with Jesus that this confession intends. I’m not saying that’s entirely bad. It’s just where we are as human beings whose faith lives are complex and full of contradictions and doubts.

I think if we took the confession seriously, if we paid attention when the Spirit moves us to say it that we might find ourselves turning with Jesus toward the cross. We might find ourselves stepping beyond a comfortable spot in the pews toward a life of service and generosity.

Paul uses some good language in today’s Romans reading for what this confession ought to do to us. It ought to make us living sacrifices, people who use our God-given gifts in service of others. People who step up and offer not just a token offering of time, or money, or energy, but people whose whole lives flow from this confession. People whose every action is in light of the creator of the universe stepping among us to serve us to be vulnerable enough to die among us.

I say this knowing I have a long way to go. Though ordination is one of those powerful and transformative moments, it doesn’t give us the power to live the kind of faith that is worthy of this confession. But what if?

What would it look like for your life to flow every moment from this confession? What would it look like for this congregation if every moment in our life together flowed from this confession? The answer to that question is going to be different for each person. For some it might mean transforming one’s perspective to see the work you already do as something that flows unknowingly from this confession. Or maybe it means picking something up that has been calling to you – a ministry whether through the church or in your daily life that you’ve been reluctant to pick up. Or maybe it means finding a way to deepen what it is you already do every day to be in closer touch with the Holy One. Whatever it is for you, I wonder if you might consider today what it would really mean if we confessed Jesus as Messiah, Son of the Living God, not just with our lips but with our whole selves and our whole lives.

Like Peter we will fail. Know that. Embrace it. And remember that Jesus knew that too, and he still planned to build a church on it. The church that Christ calls, equips, and sends is made up of bold Peters who are washed in the waters of baptism and sent to share the good news with the world just as we are – full of doubts and questions, misunderstandings about what we are all about, and not quite perfect. But we are the church and what we are about is founded on a God who gave up everything to be a foundation for our sometimes falling apart church. So this confession does, in fact, change everything for us. Whether it calls us to something deeper or not, its very truth spoken in our midst reminds us of the power of the one who is our rock to transform everything for us, even from death to life.

-Pastor Steven Wilco