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A precis of a sermon preached by The Rev. Robert Corin MorrisExecutive Director of Interweave
….But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.— Exodus 1:8-2:10
When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples,"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" Simon Peter answered,"You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."—Matthew 16:13-20
“Who do people say the Son of Man is?” Jesus asks his disciples. He’s introducing a conversation about leadership. “Son of Man” and “Messiah” — don’t think these are just theological terms. To give you a fancy word, they are theo-political, terms about leadership that will lead the people to some better form of God-shaped, God-breathed, God-inspired common life.
Questions of leadership are in the air today, as the Anglican Communion struggles with its divisions, as Russia, Europe and America redefine their relations, and as the Presidential campaigns settle in for the last lap. Just when you’ve gotten caught up on your sleep from watching Michael Phelps win gold after gold, you may be about the plunge into one or both of the party conventions. At so many levels in our world, beset as we are by multiple crises, the question surfaces: Who are the best people to lead our church, our community, our world toward a better future?
Questions of leadership were just as intense in Jesus day. The Romans now occupied half the land of Israel and ruled the other half through surrogate kings, the descendants of their puppet, Herod. People were divided about who best embodied God’s will for Israel: the high priestly party of Sadducees who dressed like Greeks and collaborated to keep the peace? the Zealots, who would take up arms to liberate Israel from pagan oppressors? the Essenes out there near the Dead Sea, who were abandoning a society they saw as hopelessly corrupt, waiting for the angelic armies to kill the unrighteous? or the party of the Pharisees, who wanted to avoid confrontation with Rome and create a holy people through intense obedience to the commandments?
Jesus may not be running for President in his day, but he is promoting himself as the leader Israel needs—at the very least the leader of a religious-social-political movement to change things for the better. His message, concerns, and mission are not purely religious, but concern what we call “the common good.” Get out of your mind that stock Christian sermon about how the Jews were “expecting an earthly messiah” but Jesus came “as a spiritual leader.” That’s just plain wrong. Read the Gospels if you don’t believe me. No, Jesus did not come to be a military leader to throw the Romans out, but his concerns were deeply earthly. They didn’t kill him for kissing babies. They didn’t kill him for saying be kind to people. They killed him because he was a threat to the existing social and political order. They killed him for political reasons, because he led a movement to change the way things were being done.
Since these lessons deal with leadership—Jesus’ leadership qualities, and the subversive leadership of those Hebrew midwives who, by their guile, saved the Hebrew boy babies—it’s worth pondering what some of the major marks of leadership are in the Scriptures. What are the marks of a good leader, a God-shaped leader?
There are three characteristics I see:
- A vision of the possible good, with the shrewdness to pursue it effectively.
- Authentic enfleshment of that vision in both life and methods.
- Seeking to reconcile as many people as possible around that vision of possible good.
A vision of the possible good, with the shrewdness to pursue it effectively.
Contrary to popular belief Jesus not an idealist, but a hard-headed realist. What he proposes are not ideals to be lived up to but real-life challenges to be lived into. His way is hard, but all the other alternatives are harder.
Take his insistence on a non-violent approach to the Roman occupation. “Turn the other cheek,” as Gandhi saw, is a political strategy for an oppressed people. It’s addressed to the hot-heads who want to retaliate for every Roman insult. “If the soldiers slugs you,” Jesus is saying, “stand tall, maintain your dignity, look him in the eye, and turn your other cheek to him as well. If he makes you carry his shield and spear for a mile, go an extra mile. If you fly off the handle, you’ll die, and your whole village may be pillaged.” On other occasions, he clearly opts for assertiveness, as when he overturns the tables of the money changers in the Temple, a symbolic act of judgment on the Temple leadership. He’s a shrewd strategist, looking to maximize the good in specific situations. As it turns out, his lead was not followed. The hot-heads took over three decades later, and led Israel into a suicidal revolt against Rome, leading to 2000 years of exile for the Jewish people. Jesus’ was is hard, but the alternatives are much harder.
Or take the call to implement the prophetic legislation of the year of Jubilee, which calls for the complete remission of all debts every fifty years. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” is not just about our emotional injuries and debts, but about the Jubilee. This is designed to keep a pre-mercantile class-structured society from slipping into a permanent class of indebted poor and land-owning rich, to reset the balance every two generations. It would be hard way, but the alternatives are much worse for the common good.
Or take forgiveness of injuries and love for the enemy. Desmond Tutu saw that this was the only practical way forward for South Africa. The Truth and Reconciliation Commissions promoted confession and reconciliation, rather than grudge-bearing and retribution, and helped save South Africa from a blood-bath. A hard way, seldom chosen, but easier in the end.
This is all in the service of the possible good, just like the marvelous female conspiracy against Pharaoh’s genocidal order in the Old Testament lesson. The Hebrew midwives shrewdly outfox Pharaoh in great style: “Lawsy mercy me,” they say, “we just can’t do anything. Those Hebrew women are just so lively.” And Pharaoh’s daughter hides a Hebrew child in the shadow of the palace and gives the young Moses protection.
Authentic enfleshment of the vision.
A leader leads by example not by force.
Sun Tzu - Leadership - Encouragement
Secondly, Jesus walks his talk. He embodies the vision he presents. He is the Way he invites others to journey down. I don’t think this means he was humanly perfect, at least not in the way usually mean that. “Perfect” people don’t usually get invited back to dinner after one experience of them. Looking for perfection in a leader is foolishly romantic, but seeking some real measure of authenticity, some core of values that shines in their decisions and behavior, a moral message and moral backbone is not only reasonable, but essential.
Humanly speaking, Jesus of Nazareth was a genuinely good person, who delighted in the good, loved the good, and gave his heart, soul and finally his life to increase the good. He may well have made mistakes. Good leaders do. I can’t imagine Mary never had to correct the young Jesus, nor that he never regretted anything he ever said or did. When we say he was without sin, we mean he never failed to respond to God’s call in his life; he didn’t swerve the from the path of his service, not that he never had change his mind, apologize to another person, or reconsider an action. God’s goodness had captured his heart, and won out over all opposition.
Part of his genuine goodness was because he dared to face his own dark side. We need leaders who know, and are able to navigate, the dangerous waters of power. In the wilderness temptation tale we see Jesus facing leadership temptations—the temptation to offer quick fixes and illusory solutions (turning stones to bread), the temptation to get drunk with power (offer of all the kingdoms of the world), and the temptation to let power make you feel invulnerable (jumping off the temple). Jesus faced his own power temptations and illusions honestly, and repeatedly, not just at the beginning of his career.
We get authentic leadership when leaders know themselves this way. The temptations of power—delusion, isolation, a sense of being above the law—are gigantic. It’s a wonder any of our leaders make it through unscathed. Just think of the kamakaze dives some of our leaders have made recently. At least John Edwards had the grace to acknowledge he was fell into such narcissistic isolation he thought he could “do anything” and get away with it.
Look for leaders who know their own clay feet. Look for leaders—and look to be a leader if you are one—who has bested the temptations of power and is a servant of the good.
Seeking to reconcile people around the vision of the good.
Finally, in their pursuit of the greatest possible good, Biblical leaders rally as many people as possible around a shared vision of that good. Who knows, for example, how many women those Hebrew midwives inspired in their campaign of active resistance to Pharaoh’s policies?
New Testament scholars have a terrible time locating Jesus in the wide spectrum of first-century Jewish thought. Some say he is a maverick Pharisee. Others see in him an example of the “ascension” mysticism of the Second Temple period. Still others cite similarities with the radical Essenes, and, even though Jesus is clearly committed to a non-violent movement, some scholars see connections with the Zealot movement. Jesus also has some clear personal connections with people close to the high priestly Sadducees he criticizes so strongly. Parallels to Jesus’ teaching can be found in each of these segments of first-century Judaism. So, the scholars fight with each other about which segment he “really” belongs to.
I think we can’t pin down Jesus because, well, he’s a politician. Seriously, I think Jesus is reaching out to all these segments of Jewish society to build a coalition of devotion to God’s way of just and compassionate community that will be as big a “tent” as possible. That’s why you find one part Essene, and six parts Pharisee, and half a pint or more of Zealot and sixteen parts of the prophetic heritage they all share in common.
The clearest sign of this, for me, is the make-up of his “cabinet,” his council of Twelve. He’s got Judas Iscariot, who may well be from Judea and connected with the powers that be in Jerusalem. He’s got middle class businessmen like the fishermen Peter, Andrew, James and John. He’s got Matthew, a former tax-collector for the Roman occupation government. And he’s got Simon the Zealot sitting across from Matthew the collaborator—men who ought to be at each other’s throats brought together around the possible good, but he’s brought them together.
And the early Church expanded that vision. Not only did it have all these different kinds of Jews gathered around Jesus’ vision of God’s will for human community, but began to include non-Jews as well. Yes, they squabbled about it, but the vision of bringing diverse people together prevailed.
Looking for leadership
Through the fog of American politics it’s hard to discern leadership. We might have harbored hope for a real debate on the pressing issues of our century, and as yet we aren’t getting it. But we’re yearning for good leadership and hoping to find it—leadership that helps our community, our church, our nation face the real and pressing challenges before us in this century.
It’s not my place—nor the place of the pulpit—to tell you who to vote for. But it is my place as a Christian and a priest to urge you not to separate your faith from your political decisions, and to make sure your vision of the good is informed by Christian values as your continue to grow in understanding of them. It is our job as Christians to discern the good as best we can and follow it, and to elect, or to be in our own localities, leaders who embody it.
So as we plunge from the Olympics to the Democratic and Republican Conventions and the last leg of this endless Presidential campaign, I hope you will resist succumbing to the fog-making elements. American political campaigns have had their share of mud-slinging and slime since the 1796 election. I’m sure this crowd is intelligent enough not to be taken in by the barrage of attack dog commercials that poison the atmosphere. Guard yourselves against the poison.
More subtly, please don’t make your decisions simply by voting for your “team,” whether it’s the “red” team or the “blue” team. Observers have pointed out that the viciously polarized politics of the last two decades, a polarization that seriously cripples the Federal government, has intensified “team loyalty” among strong partisans. The common good is too precious to squander over a competition that evokes our most primitive tribalistic passions.
What leader is best suited to cooperate with the energies of the realm of God, the kingdom of just and compassionate community Jesus taught, lived, and gave his life for? And, in the realm of your own life, whether your leadership is in family, work, church, community or beyond, what kind of leader do you need to be to embody those energies best?
The world is shaped by our answers these questions.© 2008 The Rev. Robert Corin Morris
By Mary Davis, Seminarian InternMatthew 14:22-33
It’s been a strange year for me, this year, here at St. George’s, because so much of it has been about “Peter.” I resonated with Peter in our Good Friday service back in March, and now, here I am again, resonating with Peter in our Gospel lesson today, as he steps out onto the water, in faith. I lived this story of faith during the past few weeks, so coincidently or not, here I am to preach about it today.
I stepped into my own boat, heading for the “other side,” though my boat was actually an Air France flight heading to Paris. I was on a pilgrimage to Taize, France, where an ecumenical group of approximately 100 brothers live and worship – it was a 12-day journey into the monastic life of simplicity and silence. Being completely honest, there was really nothing about this trip that I wanted to face and I had times when I seriously doubted whether I’d actually get on the plane or not. I didn’t like the idea of being away from my family for so long. I knew that traveling in a group of relative strangers would test my limited stores of patience. And I was afraid to face the mysterious unknown of the monastic spiritual life. But this trip was a requirement for my Master’s degree at Drew University, I had paid my money and lined up babysitting coverage at home – so off I went. Though very reluctantly.
When we arrived in Taize, the storm clouds gathered very quickly, and the metaphorical waves began to kick up. I quickly discovered a life unlike anything I’ve ever known here in the states. Life was hard – the meals were meager, the lodging was rustic, and the showers, at least on that first day, were ice cold.
And as you might imagine, a monastery which is flooded by 5,000 pilgrims every week during the summer requires every hand to help with the chores around the property. So we pilgrims, all 5,000 or so, were divided into smaller groups, and group by group we functioned both as a bible study group and as a work team. Some groups served the meals, while other groups cleaned the dishes, and still other groups helped out during our 3-time-a-day worship services. Imagine my horror when my particular group’s daily work assignment was to clean the bathrooms!
I had been somewhat deflated by the food situation. I was dispirited by the cold showers. And I was downhearted by my bunkmates’ night time snoring which kept me awake all night - - but the bathroom duty depressed me to no end. So I did what any self-respecting 42 year old seminary student on a pilgrimage away from home would do – I started to whine. To anyone, and everyone, who would listen.
I took my despair to our Drew group leader who also served as our resident spiritual director. He was obviously blessed with a much deeper spiritual well than I, and he responded with what I started calling one of his “Jesus answers.” He told me a brief story about humility, and then said, “Mary, there is grace in cleaning the toilets. You will see.” Clearly, this was not the answer I was looking for, and I had serious serious doubts. As it says in today’s Gospel, my boat was not just being rocked by the waves, it was being battered by the waves!
The next day, time came for our group’s cleaning duty, and I showed up at the appointed time to face my fear and despair. I was tempted to show up, wearing my ipod, cleaning in as detached a way as possible, but then decided that would be the same as if Peter had climbed back into the boat cowering with the rest of the disciples. So, I arrived for duty, along with five other women who had been assigned to the job, and we began to organize ourselves. We quickly tripped over a major problem. There was a huge barrier between us - language. I had been grouped with 3 Portuguese women and 2 other British women, and it quickly became clear that these two camps did not share one word in common. Just like Peter, I was beginning to sink deeper and deeper into my well of fear and doubt. I thought, could things get any worse?
But just then, another woman arrived, and she stepped in, almost miraculously, and eagerly and capably translated instructions and strategies for cleaning amongst our two linguistic subgroups. And with that, the 6 of us began to connect. Walls broke down between us, and my wall of disgust for the job which we had been assigned began to melt away as well. We worked together - all of us, so different and yet all of us very much the same - all on a pilgrimage to find Christ in a foreign land. And believe it or not, the work turned into a service of joy, not just an obligation or a duty – but an expression of love, through service. Truthfully, if I hadn’t been a part of it, I never would have believed.
As we finished mopping and squeegying the floors, took off our gloves and put our brooms away, I asked my newfound interpreter and friend, “Oh and by the way, what is your name?” To which she responded, “My name is [gratie]” “[gratie]? I asked,” not wanting to mispronounce her name, and she said, “Yes, it’s spelled G-R-A-C-E.”
Just like Peter walking out onto the water, full of faith yet at the same time, full of fear and doubt, I walked out onto the choppy, and dirty, waters. And I discovered that Jesus had extended his hand to me, even in the midst of my whining doubts. I found grace in cleaning those toilets and I realized that service can and should come from a place of joy, joy which can only be found in God’s love for us and shared with each other through Christ’s embodied extended hand which we can experience in and through our fellow human beings.
But this was a daring gamble. I wanted to stay home on the front end. And even after I arrived, I still wanted to run home. But I stepped out of the boat in faith, dared to trust, and truly found grace in the process.
Several times last week, we sang a Russian chant during worship in Taize. It read, “Bog jest miloscia.” The English translation of the entire chant reads: “God is forgiveness. Dare to forgive and God will be with you. God is forgiveness. Love and do not fear.”
So the message I bring home from Taize is the same message that Peter might have preached to the crowds on the shoreline. Dare, today and in the days to come, to walk out on the water, answering Jesus’ call to “Come.” Dare to include and extend yourself to those who are different, perhaps those who speak a different language – even if you share the same English dialect. Dare to listen to others. Even more than that, dare to be silent and listen for ways God speaks to you. Dare to reach out for Jesus, and the living Christ will extend his hand to us, and to you, in love. I experienced this many times over during the course of my trip. And each time, Christ reached out and touched me in love through someone or something in my path. The whole week, I kept asking God, just to make sure, “Are you still there?” “I’m here” was God’s answer.
Dare to believe it in your own lives. Then, better yet, dare to step out onto the water and live it as well.
Amen.© 2008 Mary Davis
By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector
A couple weeks ago we read the story of Jacob's birth, how he grew to young manhood and cheated his brother out of both his birthright and inheritance. In today's lesson we see Jacob a bit older and having run away from home in fear of his brother's anger. It's not without a little bit of delicious irony that while he may have run away from his brother, he could not outrun his karma (to mix faith based metaphors.) The cheater found himself cheated in the matter of his marriage. And cheated by a relative whom he trusted. Well, Jacob, what goes around, comes around.
What connects this story to the parables we read in the Gospel is Jacob's desire to do whatever he needed to do to get what was important to him. He ended up working 14 years to marry Rachel because he loved her so much.
The Gospel gives us several parables and each is rich and worthy of a lot of time. But summarizing, they point to God's abundance and the role of the seeker in taking extraordinary means to attain it.
The parable I'd like to focus on is the one about the fine pearl. Short and sweet it simply says that the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.
The pearl, being in the shape of a sphere and orb, recalls symbols used in royal vestments to signify a totality of the kingdom, or a figure of eternity, or an archetype of wisdom. The book of Wisdom in the Hebrew Bible personifies wisdom as a woman and some iconographers depict her holding an orb.
The parable becomes an invitation to enter a spiritual journey that takes us deeper and deeper into the mystery of God and into the mystery of ourselves. A booming business for the past generation has been the rise of self-help books, talk shows, and now reality shows. I believe they are all attempts to help us to understand how we "tick". However, I can read all the books in the world, but unless I put into practice what I read, I gain nothing. The merchant who sold all he had made a total commitment to his discovery. Jacob spent years of hard work to attain his goal. It's not enough to "know," we have to invest the time and effort to do the work.
Beginning this past week and extending two more weeks there is a major event happening in the worldwide Anglican Communion. The Lambeth Conference meets every ten years and is hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Its original intent over the last century has been to gather Bishops of Anglican heritage from around the world who have no legal jurisdiction over each other, but a common heritage in the Church of England. It's to be a sign of unity and cooperation in a religious world of often competing and even more often critical and hostile criticism. As a communion we have long had differences of opinions, but have prided ourselves on the ability to weather storms of disagreement by conversation and common ground.
This sign of unity is threatened over the controversy begun several years ago when the American Episcopal Church consecrated Gene Robinson, an openly gay and partnered man to be a Bishop. The American Church is well within its legal rights, and a majority still contends its moral right, to move in this direction. Other Bishops around the world have decided to draw a line in the sand around this issue. Many conservative Bishops have stayed away in protest of the American church's actions. Gene Robinson himself was not invited.
The pearl of great value in our witness to God's love still seems to be on the bargaining table. The Bishops have wisely, I think, put off the conversations of this topic for the latter part of their time together and while it's still certainly the elephant in the chapel, there are other topics which they should be pursuing- like peace, hunger, the abuse of women, illiteracy, indeed all the UN Millennium Development goals. In fact, the Bishops did march through the streets of London in witness to the against global poverty.
The impact they could have as witnesses of communication and modeling how to resolve issues as Christ would have called us to do is immense. The issues of sexuality, important as they are, are still only smoke screens for the real struggle of how to read the Bible and glean its teaching. Fundamental intolerance is creeping into a group once hailed as open to new thought and able to discuss and debate core issues in a civil manner.
More work has yet to be done as the conference continues and it certainly deserves our continued prayer. A common vision for a witness to God's love that extends to all people is indeed a pearl of great value. I hope they buy it and take all the time they need and pool their resources to work together to do so.
But while they are doing their work, we also have work to do. Yearning for God and finding the treasure of God's love is work for each of us. The parable and other stories are simply backdrops for our own work and struggles as we weigh the determination with which to pursue our own goals.
I wrestled with whether or not to tell this next story since it's very personal, but I think it relates to the point of working to achieve important spiritual goals. Parts of the story are intentionally vague however, listening to a restlessness in my spirit some months ago I decided to get in touch with a spiritual director known for his rigorous methods of spiritual inquiry. He doesn't take many directees anymore and I felt fortunate to be among them.
There are many methods of spiritual direction, but his involves an examination of the past, warts and all -- confessions of my deepest and darkest secrets and also asking probing questions of things I'd prefer to forget. All of this in the quest of finding the root of the inner restlessness I felt. At one point he grinned and said, "We're going to shake the tree and see what falls out."
Among the things that did fall out were perplexing and disturbing memories from my childhood. Painful, dangerous and frightening I again saw after many years what a child should not have seen. As an adult I have a better understanding, but the child's pain has been unresolved. It's easier to talk of these things in a detached way here, but I assure you under the guidance of the skilled director it has been painfully cleansing. For me, some memories are clear, others vague, but my commitment to the healing which I believe is only possible in the love and grace of God, keeps me going despite the pain.
Some friends have advised that I not do this work and let sleeping dogs lie. But I won't put a band aid on a deep wound and once begun I cannot stop. I will take this as far as I can come what may. And I will do whatever I have to do. For me the pearl of great value is a resolution to a very old wound, and I intend to get it.
Spiritual work is just that -- work. In all the parables the characters involved make decisions and take actions. As a wise person once said, "Nothing difficult was ever easy."
The world around us has business coaches, life coaches, sponsors and mentors. In our faith tradition we have spiritual directors. Our tools are prayer, sacraments, meditation, community of faithful lay and clergy, scriptures, reason and our traditions. Use me as a resource, or Chris Carroll or Chris McCloud either as a person to help you or as one to recommend another person who can.
Few, if any, of us take these journeys alone and the good news is that we don't have to. To reach our spiritual goals there are many obstacles -- painful experiences, fears, anger and resentments, confusion, are just a few. The goals of inner peace, stability, balance and hope are some of the pearls of great value available to us. They aren't cheap, but well worth the price and effort to find and buy. And the currency to buy it is simply the desire to do so and the willingness to stop at nothing to get them.
In respect to the Lambeth Conference I'll close with a verse from the English poet John Byrom writing in the early 18th century.
"My spirit longeth for thee;
Within my troubled breast;
Although I be unworthy of so divine a guest...
No rest is to be found, but in thy blessed love;
O, let my wish be crowned, and send it from above."
(John Byrom, d. 1763)
Amen.
© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ
By Mary Davis, Seminarian InternMatthew 13:24-30; 36-43
There really ought to be an ecclesiastical law that says, ‘thou shall not read scriptures which reference “weeping and gnashing of teeth” on Baptism Sundays!’ And yet, this reading from Matthew is our appointed Gospel lesson for today, and I’ve wrestled with it a great deal, knowing that today is Will’s and Lilyanna’s baptism day. The author of Matthew uses this, his favorite expression of judgment and punishment - “weeping and gnashing of teeth” - no fewer than 6 times in his book, and this particular reference, as we heard this morning, is included inside the explanation for the parable of the wheat and weeds.
Jesus knew a little something about wheat and weeds, and the particular weeds Jesus was speaking about in this parable, were not dissimilar to the weeds growing up in my own yard, fed by water, sunlight and soil, same as the healthy seeded grass. They exist side by side and at times compete for space. Truth is, evil exists and just as there are individuals, institutions and establishments that feed and sustain us just like wheat, and there are also individuals, institutions and establishments that drain the life out of us just like weeds.
Our human inclination is to sort and categorize people, just as the slaves in Jesus’ story wanted to gather up the weeds and pluck them out. Although I do not know much, if anything, about the organic nature of wheat and weeds, (and if I did, I probably would not be standing here right now), I do know a little something about wheat and weeds in the figurative sense. I grew up in Texas, well, actually, I moved to Texas from the coal-mining hills of Kentucky when I was 9 years old. And my transition to life in Texas was not an easy one. There was much to learn, and in fact Texas offered me an entirely new culture and they spoke a different language. I learned that you either wore the burnt orange of the Texas Longhorns, or you were a die-hard “gig ‘em” Aggie fan. I learned that you were either “From” Texas (meaning, you were born there) or you were not. And I learned that you were either a bible-believing Christian from a so-called “Bible Church”, or you were not. Even though I converted into a Longhorn fan, most of the time, I fell into the “not” categories in Texas – I was not “From” Texas, born and bred there, and I was not was I from a ‘true’ Bible church, but instead I was from a strange Protestant liturgical and sacramental church, the Episcopal Church. I was an outsider, and I must say, it was not uncommon for me to be lumped into the category of weeds or to hear references to “weeping and gnashing of teeth” applied to outsiders such as me.
Now, in order to understand this story further and on a deeper level, apart from the experience of wheat and weeds, we also have to look closer into the world of the parable, which is the container, the structural Tupperware, if you will, of the wheat and weeds. To appreciate what a parable is, first of all, let’s look at what a parable is not. A parable is the opposite of a myth. A myth serves to resolve contradiction and paradox, and assumes that reconciliation is not only a possibility, but a reality. [1] In this summer season full with vacations and travel, the myth of Disneyworld, comes to my mind. I’ve been there a couple of times with my family and noticed that there’s no doubt or subtlety to the mythic spirituality at Disneyworld which is made complete each night with a Jiminy Cricket led meditation of fireworks and the assurance that indeed “all of your dreams will come true.”
Parable, on the other hand, is not about covering up contradictions or blemishes or paradoxes, but instead it is all about those contradictions. For example, Jesus tells parables about a world where the “first will be last” and the “meek will inherit the earth,” as well as where, as today’s text reads, “an enemy [will] sow weeds among the wheat.” We live in a parabolic world where yes, wheat and weeds do exist side by side, though we crave and hope for a mythic world where neighbors live in peace and treat each other with respect.
Contextually, when Matthew’s Gospel was written, around 85 AD, the tensions between the Jewish establishment and the newly emerging Christian Church were particularly bitter, and Matthew’s harsh words for those who questioned Jesus’ legitimacy and wisdom came out of that parabolic community existence. Clearly, in that time, the notion of community was a parable, a contradiction and competition between wheat and weeds, and I’d like to suggest that today, we too experience the same thing, community as a parable in action.
So what does this mean, a “parable of community?” I first tripped over this idea while doing some background reading in anticipation of my upcoming 2 week pilgrimage to Taize, France. I am heading to Taize this Thursday, which is an ecumenical religious community 300 miles south west of Paris. It was founded in 1940 by a Swiss Protestant by the name of Roger Schutz, or Brother Roger, as he was known. The monastic life at Taize includes Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican members, and their meditative worship style is based on the notions of forgiveness, reconciliation and God’s presence. These primary ‘sources’ or monastic rules – which are what life at Taize is built around - structure everything the brothers do at Taize and as well as in their missions around the world. But Taize is not an example of a mythic community, isolated from the world in some picture perfect holy existence, “where all your dreams come true” – the Brothers there live the life of the parable, just like you and I do. They live out the Henri Nouwen’s definition of community – “As soon as you have community, you have a problem. . . ‘Community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives.’” [2] And, when my pilgrimage leader once asked one of the Taize brothers how it is possible for all of the brothers at Taize to live in community, one of the brothers responded with a wise smile, “If we didn’t have the Prayer three times a day, we would kill each other.” [3] To live in community means that we are dependent on the very thing that causes us stress, the wheat and the weeds together. Since no one is a Christian alone, this is the parable of community.
Today’s baptismal celebration fits right in with today’s Gospel parable, because not only does this ritual mark these children as “Christ’s own forever”, a promise of God’s never-ending presence, and initiate them into both the St. George’s and the worldwide Christian community of faith. Baptism also marks Will and Lilyanna with the sign of the cross – which is a sign of contradiction that reminds us that we must die to live - and that even as much as we love and protect our children, their growth and development - physically, emotionally and spiritually - involves letting go.
Our wider Christian community is certainly not immune from the parabolic nature of life either. We need not look any further than our own Episcopal Church and our anticipation of The Lambeth Conference as on-going evidence of this. Our communion is united by our marks in baptism as “Christ’s own forever” and yet, we are divided by human judgment and an almost innate drive to separate the wheat from the weeds. Reading a quote this week by Bishop Robinson gave me some honest and true perspective, and some hope. He said, “I believe in my heart that God’s love is not only inclusive, but also extravagant” and it seems to me that only a God-given extravagant love can create communal unity; unity as a divine gift, not a human creation.
So, the beauty of reading this Gospel lesson today, on this baptism day, is that it is symbolic of our lives as a parable. We live the tensions and questions of our individual lives inside community, and within our community exists yet another set of tensions and questions. Our lives in community mean that on some days we are like the weeds in the garden – masquerading as wheat and drawing life from others – while still, on other days, we are the ones who support and sustain others in our community. Judgment should not come from our human desire to categorize and exclude, but only through God’s extravagant love, which can and will feed us completely and eternally, turning our communities into places of forgiveness, reconciliation, and God’s presence.
Amen.
[1] Anderson, Herbert and Edward Foley. Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals (John Wiley and Sons: San Francisco), 1988, pp. ix-xv.
[2] Nouwen, Henri J.M. with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird, Spiritual Direction:Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith (San Francisco: Harper Publishers) 2006, p. 113.
[3] Rev. Jeff Markay, email correspondence, 7.10.08.
© 2008 Mary Davis
By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector
I wanted to talk about the parable of the sower and the seeds, but a phrase in the Old Testament lesson nagged at me too much and wouldn't let me concentrate. Perhaps the same phrase jumped out at you? It's the phrase when Esau comes in from the field and he's hungry and says to Jacob, "Let me eat some of that red stuff...."
Now, I like to cook and God knows that description could also be used with some of my dishes. Still, it irks me to see it here. One wonders what was on the mind of the translators who came up with this "red stuff." Earlier translations used the words "stew" or "pottage." Both of these are noble and hearty words to describe the food Jacob was eating and presumably taunting Esau with. "Red stuff" seems to lack the dignity one expects in Biblical readings. I am tremendously impressed that the layreader read this lesson without so much as a smirk. Not only would that reaction have been appropriate but the well aimed "hurrumph" would also be fitting. So a big Bronx cheer to the translators of this passage.
Having said all that, and getting that out of my system, a word about word play might give some instruction. You see, not only is the translator guilty of dubious humor, the original writer is too. The writer goes out of his or her way to describe Esau as a red, hairy man. The word "esau" means "hairy" in Hebrew. So this means that Isaac and Rebecca named their hairy little baby, "Hairy." (And not the kind that met Sally, either!) Well, little baby Hairy was followed closely in birth by his twin brother. We're told the twin had grabbed hold of Hairy's heel on the way out, and perhaps used this method to ease the passage. I must admit that my understanding of childbirth was stretched by this image in and information. I never thought there was so much room for this sort of gynecological gymnastic.
Never the less, Isaac and Rebecca having demonstrated an uncanny wit for naming babies, named the second boy "heel grabber" or in English, Jacob. I'm beginning to feel a certain generosity of forgiveness for the translator who came up with "red stuff," given the act he's had to follow. Oh, but we're not done with the clever word play yet. You see Esau had a nickname. He was also called "Edom." Edom means "red." So both his red hair and the red stuff for which he traded his birthright earned him this clever nickname. No doubt when the enormity of his mistake was discovered, he was probably also very red faced.
Esau apparently did not inherit the cleverness of Isaac, Rebecca or share in the calculating and effective deceitfulness of his brother Heel Grabber, uh, Jacob. It would seem that Jacob was to grab much more than his brother's heel during their lives. Esau was the first born and therefore entitled to the inheritance. Despite what we might think of the fairness of that system, that's what it was. But by the time they were grown, Jacob had tricked Esau out of all of it.
These stories in Genesis are creation and origin stories. They tell the tales of beginnings. You can imagine families around the fires at night where children ask how the world was created or why do we live here and those people live there? There were stories about everything and everyone from people and places to rock formations and rivers. Puns are important in these stories and unfortunately we lose a lot since the original language holds a treasure trove of them that aren't translated in this way.
It's also apparent that these stories are in some cases gentle and in other cases not so gentle mocking of neighboring peoples and also dangerous enemies. In these stories Jacob and Esau went on to be the patriarchs of nations that lived side by side. Jacob's name was later changed to "Israel" and the country bears his name; while Edom, the country to the south of Israel (also known for its stretches of red rock formations) bears the name of Jacob's brother -- a name that is the subject of teasing and slight ridicule.
When I was a child the RI neighborhood I grew up in was fond of certain ethnic jokes aimed at people descended from a European country that discretion prevents me from naming. One year cousins of ours from Holland came to visit and as children do we started swapping jokes. We giggled and roared as we told our favorite ethnic jokes and were confused why they didn't laugh at all.
For their part, they found great humor in telling Belgian jokes. And while they giggled and roared my siblings and I looked at each other totally bored with that line of humor. What's so funny about Belgians we wondered?
However, being adaptable children we soon learned that if we each told our jokes and substituted our preferred nationalities that our respective audiences giggled and roared as we had originally hoped.
The point is that prior to the raising of politically correct sensitivity, the mocking of one nationality by another is an age old past time. Israel and Edom shared such a past time using each other as the brunt of their humor. The wisdom in this story, though, echoes that of one we read a short time ago between brothers Abraham and Ishmael who also founded countries that became enemies later on. The wisdom is that even enemies are rooted in family ties. Our enemies are not our enemies at all. They are our brothers and sisters.
The beauty of these creation stories is that they convey wit and humor describing relationships that were contemporary to them while not losing sight of the fact that all people come from God and are brothers and sisters.
Our societies are marked by relationships that run the full range of loving to deadly. Our rhetoric goes from witty and good natured teasing to poisonous slander or vicious distortion. Election years are fodder for such negative volleys and this year promises to be more severe than most I believe. People at war, and those on opposite sides of political or social issues -- as well as those involved in personal disputes tend to be guilty of dehumanizing their opponents.
Despite our relationships, the disagreements, the tensions and even dangers, we are all bothers and sisters springing from the love and life of God. Unless we change our approach from enemies to be vanquished to brothers or sisters to be reconciled we will be out of sync with the earliest wisdom of creation -- that we are all from God and only through God can we all be reconciled.
Jesus told his disciples about the seeds being sowed on the path. Not only can we look at the seed as being the word of God that we hear and in fact how we listen to it, but in the many layers of the parable, we can see ourselves as the seed being sent to bear fruit in a world that needs it. Not only do we hear the word, but we become the word. There are obstacles to both. But in the end, it is God's garden and God's been planting gardens a long time. If we do our best, God will do the rest.
Amen.
© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ
By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector
Of all the Biblical stories to be scheduled for this day of Baptisms, the sacrifice of Isaac is probably the worst. For those of you not familiar with our system, and perhaps still in shock over the appallingly bad taste of this lesson, let me assure you that it was not by choice but by assignment that this lesson appears.
Our system of readings puts scripture on a three year cycle so that at the end of this time, most of the Bible will have been read and presumably taught about. It's just our luck of the draw that we read about a father being commanded to sacrifice his only son in a rather grim fashion. If the story line of fathers sacrificing sons sounds familiar, this lesson is used in frequent parallel with God's sacrifice of Jesus.
However, before we get carried away with some of the gritty details, let me offer that the word "sacrifice" also means "gift." In Biblical terms the gift of one's life often included death, but I'd like to suggest that the giving of one's life can take other forms.
The four parents of Phoebe and Sienna have sacrificed your lives to have these children and raise them. You have given yourselves to this care and very sacred work. You have declined the many other possibilities open to you, so that you could raise these children. Whether professional options, or traveling, or material possessions -- time spent on yourselves or in any one of so many ways you could have lived your lives without children, you gave those up. You sacrificed them to bring these new lives into the world. You have made commitments to them, to your spouses and families, to the communities of which you'll be part, and to yourselves that you will do this work. And it is a sacrifice.
I would invite you to consider also the possibility that you are offering the sacrifice of your children to the good of the world of which they are now a part and will grow deeper as time goes on.
The Poet and priest John Donne wrote about hearing the funeral bells ringing after the death of a person that no one knew. He mused, "For whom the bell tolls? It tolls for thee." We are so connected to each other that our world is comprised by every living being and it is impacted and diminished by the death of every human being, regardless of who knows them. We ring bells for death, but also for happier occasions like weddings and birth and if we had them to ring, we'd ring them today and proclaim to the world that it has been enriched by the Baptism of these two babies.
Consider that you have made a gift of these babies to the world. As they grow and become young women and take their place in the world, the gifts and talents God has bestowed on them will become more evident and indeed enrich the world.
At some point all parents have to let go of their children, and allow them to make their own way in the world, to make their own mistakes, follow their dreams and meet their own challenges. If I were to ask you now, it would probably seem like a long time before you begin to let go of your children to let them become the adults they are meant to be.
If I were to ask your parents, I suspect they would say it's a lot shorter than you realize. Their sacrifice has been to give the four of you to the world to bring hope and good news and new life into it. Your sacrifice will be to give your children to the world.
Abraham's willingness to give Isaac's life gives a vivid image to the reality of how painful it can be to let go of a child and let them enter into a life that God has called them.
Fortunately for this sermon, the Gospel lesson gives us a much nicer portion of scripture to deal with and far more appropriate. In this lesson Jesus talks about how important it is to show welcome. Welcoming the strangers is a common theme in the Bible and the connection is often made that whoever welcomes a stranger may be welcoming angels unawares. And in another case, a Latin inscription on a building at my alma mater translates to say "A stranger comes, Christ comes." The rewards to welcoming others is to be enriched by the gifts that they are, even more than any gifts they might bring. And Jesus continues to say that "Anyone who gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple - truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward."
I'm sure you give them more than a cup of cold water, and I'm sure that the rewards you feel have already outweighed any sacrifice you made to welcome them into the world. The love of God is like that too. As St. Francis said, "In giving we receive."
God's love welcomes us and brings us into community. Sacrifices we make in the name of God, or in the love of God are both gift to others and reward. Not only do we bring Sienna and Phoebe to the water, we sacrifice them through the act of Baptism by which they "die to sin" as St. Paul says so that they may be resurrected to new life. With al the possible ways you could have chosen to raise these children, you have chosen a Christian path. We initiate them into the life of worship, service, sacrament and discovery. We renounce evil and its manifestations, we embrace the life and teaching s of Jesus, we take hope in His resurrection and hold to the promise that we too will have everlasting life in the love of God, whatever shape that takes. We promise to seek forgiveness when we have made mistakes and to tell others about this faith that means so much to us -- because it just might make the difference in someone else's life that they're looking for.
Today we welcome Phoebe and Sienna in the name of Christ, we offer their lives to God mindful that the world can be a dangerous place. It can also be a beautiful place ful of love and God's grace. Wherever their lives take them, they will know that they are loved and precious in the sight of God, their parents and the community of saints that welcomes them this day. We witness the vows their godparents make and renew these vows ourselves. They are reminders just in case along our life's path, we have forgotten them or let them get a bit rusty. Our sacrifice, our gift, is to live the life God has given us, in a way that honors God's love and reflects it to the world.
Amen.
© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ
By The Rev. Bernard W. Poppe, Rector
Some of the most disturbing words in the Bible are in this passage from Jesus, saying "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword." Setting family members against each other, and saying those who put family members before God are not worthy of God seem cruel and even more confusing as it appears to be against the commandment to honor one's mother and father.
The answer to this difficult passage, I believe, lay in the paradox which follows it: Those who find their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
The easiest approach to this passage is the explanation that the Gospel of Matthew was written during the time of persecution. It was politically subversive to be a Christian since Christians would not recognize the authority or especially the divinity of the emperor. Being caught in Christian company or at worship was an offense punishable by at least prison and more likely by death in any one of many gruesome and agonizing ways.
On the religious level, Jewish synagogues also considered Christianity a threat to their law and established way of life. Traditional Jewish teaching did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah, as Christians insisted, and steadfastly upheld the law of Moses which Christians no longer felt bound to obey. The inclusion of Gentiles into the membership of Christianity only aggravated the animosity the Jews felt toward Christians. Punishment from the synagogues regardless of those handed out by the Roman government were severe ostracism and expulsion from the temple membership. Moreover, if someone was discovered to be a Christian, their whole family could be under suspicion and face similar punishments on both religious and governmental levels.
Families were indeed torn apart by matters of faith. Relatives did turn each other in to avoid suspicion. Horrible choices were made and grisly consequences followed. There were Christians who denied their faith in Jesus to avoid punishment and were then excluded from the Christian church on the grounds of betraying Jesus and also for fear that no one knew where this person's loyalty lay. They might just be a spy to turn in the fugitive Christian community.
It's against this backdrop that the Gospel of Matthew was written and those hearing the Gospel read would have listened very somberly and knowingly of the truth in these words. The convictions of one's faith have far reaching impact. As I said earlier, that would be the easy approach. To put it in the context of history and therefore safely out of the way.
But taking that approach wouldn't do us much good. We need to be able to bring these scriptures into our lives and wrestle with them especially when they make us uncomfortable. One question that echoes down through the centuries from this passage is, "What do you believe so fervently that you would risk your family, your life and everything you've ever known, rather than deny it?" Agonizing stories and situations that try to answer this question make up a good deal of literature. One of my favorite stories, A Man for All Seasons, has Sir Thomas Moore prepared to go to his death burning at the stake rather than approve King Henry VIII's divorce. His wife and family beg him to reconsider, the pressures of politics hound him, yet he stays steadfast in his ideals and it causes his death and he dies with the knowledge that his choice will bring immense hardship on his family after he dies. The bitter cost of integrity. It is a sword, and yet it is true to life.
Our truth, what we know of ourselves, what we value, who we are all get wrapped up in our integrity. Whether in dramatic instances or less, we all have faced or will face times when voices will want us to concede a point of our integrity. These scriptures address such times. Jesus said in another part of scripture that he is truth. If that God-part of him is truth, just as the God part in each of us is truth, we cannot deny it and live. If Thomas Moore had recanted his truth, something more important in him would have died, even if his body lived. Earlier in our Gospel Jesus told his disciples not to fear those who can kill the body but not the soul, rather, fear those who can kill both body and soul.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was often asked during the Apartheid era if he was afraid of being killed. His consistent response was that no one could kill him. They might kill his body, but his soul belonged to God and no one could kill that.
Our truths are a very real part of us and need to be embraced, no matter the cost. Since this is Gay Pride Month I'll tell a personal story of how I relate to this scripture. When I was in my mid twenties I had already come to terms with the fact that I was gay. It was the secret I held close all through my childhood, high school, and college years. I lived in fear that others would find out and that I would become the focus of the kind of torment I'd seen other boys go through. My deepest fear was that my family would disown me and want nothing to do with me. Such things were common stories at the time, they still are tragically for that matter. Even today Christopher Street in Manhattan is one destination of teens thrown out of their homes for revealing their sexuality or as the result of others cruelly outing them. Homeless and afraid, they enter lives that are cruel and from which they can't even begin to lift themselves.
It boggles my mind how families can turn out children they claimed to love just a day before this information came to light. And just as it is true today, it was true thirty years ago when I lived with my secret. I didn't know how my family would react and I didn't dare take the chance.
As I graduated Seminary and entered into a relationship I knew the truth had to come out, and me with it. It was a difficult time with my parents, to give you a taste of New England understatement. But at the end I knew they still loved me and wanted me to be happy. Years of secrecy, fear and shame opened up to healing and truth. I consider this story to be a large part of why I find the healing ministry to be so important. Many of our injuries are not to the body, but the soul and while doctors can tend the sickness of the body, spiritual healing addresses the injuries that lay deep and festering in our souls.
It was in claiming my truth and as the years unfold, living my truth that have given me life. I had reached a point where I was willing to die to my family because the truth in me could not be remain hidden. It was a risk, that turned out happily for me regarding my family.
We all have our truths that we might be living or that might be deep within us yearning to be free. These truths could be our identity in so many ways that can be understood. Our truths may be the intellect or creativity we are afraid to use. Our truths may be our beliefs or doubts. Our truths may be in our business practices. Whatever they are, they are worth risking for.
We might be afraid of negative consequences, perhaps even to death. But unless we grasp our truths, we die anyway in our souls. The whole point of resurrection is trusting that new life will come from whatever death we might imagine or actually face as we grasp our truth. Even if we lose everything and gain the truth that is in us, new life will grow in a far better way. If we lose our lives for Jesus, that is the Jesus who says "I am the truth…" we will indeed gain it.
The scripture that causes us so much trouble as we read it simply brings to light a deep spiritual truth. It does so in the gritty language of a culture two thousand years ago. But it's clear that the truth still applies. Ultimately the sword that Jesus brings cuts through the slavery of fear, or shame, or anger or whatever else might prevent us from living the life God made us to live. Ultimately the words are of liberation and life. Tell your truth to some one, tell it to God, though I suspect, the One who is Truth already knows it. We surely must tell it, live it, embrace it and know that God loves us in the secrets we keep and in the truths that we shout. And that love brings us life.
Amen.
© 2008 St. George's Episcopal Church, Maplewood, NJ
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