Who are the Good Guys, and How can you Tell the Right Ones from the Wrong Ones?
Numbers 11: 4-6, 10-16, 24-29
September 29, 1991
A number of parents experienced A traumatic moment this month, they watched a child leave home, either for college or maybe for first grade. I imagine as they watched them leave the house, they wandered to themselves, have I prepared them adequately for all they will face? Because, none of us do the parenting tasks perfectly. It is not unusual that sooner or later these same children will come back and ask, Why did you not tell me this or that? I never heard a word about that as I was growing up. The world out there is large and confusing.
This happens to ministers as well as to parents. People come up to us and say, Sunday school and confirmation classes didn’t prepare us for the world out there. Why didn’t you help me in distinguishing the good guys from the bad guys, or at least aid me in thinking ethically?
This is the third in our series on the questions that life raises. This morning, we’re focusing on how to distinguish the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, the good guys from the bad guys.
In our Old Testament lesson, we have a fascinating account about two people named Eldad and Medad, they sound like an old time vaudeville act. Instead of a song and dance combination, we’re told they were prophets, and they began to say important things when Moses was away from camp. To make matters worse, scripture tells us, they hadn’t gone to the tent. A moose translation of this would be that they hadn’t been to seminary, and they hadn’t been properly ordained. And therefore, Joshua says to Moses, Go forbid them, they are not of us.
The same thing happens in our New Testament lesson. John reports to Jesus, we saw a man casting out demons and we stopped him. He was not following us. In both these instances, the validity of the act depends upon the legitimacy and the correctness of the person. So what’s right and what’s wrong? According to Joshua and John, it depends on one’s resume. The ins are the only ones who can be counted on to do or say the right thing.
Saint Anthony of the Desert writes, The time is coming when men will go mad and they will see someone who is not mad and they will attack him, saying, you are mad, you are not like us. That’s the kind of madness I see characterized by the Johns and Joshuas, the madness of not being able to recognize the good, not being able to discern the prophet, the minister, the healer, unless he or she looks, acts, and believes in the same things as we do.
This summer I was in California near Disneyland. Whenever I’m out in that part of the country I always find something that speaks to my sermons. I wasn’t disappointed. While walking along the street, I saw a T-shirt with the words, 3,000,000 lemmings can’t be wrong.
Well, they can. We can all suffer from a madness that can’t distinguish the good from the bad. we can plunge forward into self-destruction, fail to listen to our voices, and fail to discern the prophets of our day.
I read some interesting words this week, from a woman by the name of Mary Hatch. She’s radical, and thought by many to be beyond the pale in Christian circles. She’s quoted as saying, what is wrong with the mainline churches? In a nutshell, is that they give out the worst schools in the culture. The preaching and teaching people get in church simply underscores what they get from newspapers and television. They tell people that what it means to be a good human being, a good Christian, is to fit in as best they can. In short, the church stifles the imagination and pacifies people’s emotions and therefore, church people often miss the prophetic word.
The world calls us out of our narrow, stained glass box hall to a wider vision of the world. We should be more concerned with bringing together the broken fragments of our society than in arguing the relative merits and personal morality. The merry hatches of the world are more concerned with good society than with good sexual conduct. The merry hatches of the world are part of the prophetic minority as opposed to the moral majority.
Let me be very personal here. I believe we can’t hear the Mary hatches and other prophetic voices because we have opted for privatized, individualistic, paternalistic morality. Doing the right thing means not doing harm to others and letting others be. Doing the right thing is completely divorced from any public agenda, any societal goodness.
By and large, salvation for church people consists of taking care of our soul and making sure we’re good enough to get through the pearly gates. But what if, what if there were more? What if getting into heaven is dependent upon your getting there also? If my healing depended upon your healing? What if we really believe we were cells interconnected to a great body? What would that mean toward a global perspective toward pushing out our horizons?
Can you see how we’re getting into hot water here, how we’re leaving the private sector and going into the public arena? Can you see how the prophets are those who look critically at the institution of the day and look to more than individual goodness? Can you see how that makes church people nervous?
Going back to those two prophets with funny names, we read that they prophesied. We don’t know what they said, but we can be sure it was more than just fit in. Or, be a good person. Then Joshua, the minister of Moses, one of those with the right credentials, said, Shut them up. But Moses said, are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets if the Lord put his spirit upon all of them would that they all would do battle for the Lord’s sake.
Moses understood that if you become concerned with who’s in and who’s out, who’s legitimate and who’s suspect, who’s right and who’s wrong, you inevitably begin to narrow your vision. Moses reminds Joshua that doing the Lord’s work, establishing the Kingdom, is not an exclusive job for chosen people. Ministry is wildly inclusive. It’s the work of us all and the test of rightness and wrongness is not in Regency but rather in service to the wider community.
In England, in the 19th century, when the industrial revolution began to grind down, the poor church people used to say, Isn’t it a shame that those mills existed. But no one challenged the institutions and society that produced that situation. And then a dreamer, a poet, a Mystic, a prophet by the name of William Blake had his words put into music, it’s always been my favorite hymn. Let’s let Blake have the last word, maybe we can stretch our vision
Bring me my bow of burning gold,
bring me my arrows of desire,
bring me my spear, ohh clouds unfold,
bring me my chariot of fire.
I will not cease for mental fight,
nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
till we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land
Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets
Amen
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Kick-Off Sunday
James 1: 17-27
September 7, 2000
Last weekend we went to Phoenix on our Labor Day holiday. Each year we spend part of this time in that great American pastime, shopping.
This year, we stopped at the new Nordstrom. While waiting for Peggy to try on some clothes, I struck up a conversation with one of the salespersons. I asked how they were able to handle the vast Labor Day crowds. He shared an idea that he had suggested to the management. It was a novel way to be helpful to customers who wanted assistance without offending those who were there to just browse. This was the plan. Upon entering Nordstrom’s, a person was asked to attach one of two available pins. One pin was red and said, “Please wait on me.” The other was green and said, “Just browsing.” Not a bad idea. I think we ought to adopt it for Sunday mornings.
Our ushers could greet worshippers in the doorway with an invitation to choose a pin. One would be red (for the names of Pentecost) with the words “I want to be turned on to ministry.” The other would be green and would say, “I want to hear the music and sermon, but I’m just browsing. Don’t disturb me.”
Our text for this morning comes from the letter of James. It’s an appropriate passage for our Kick-Off Sunday, the day when we’re invited to go to the Gallery and sign up for a variety of ministries and other activities. It’s a text that isn’t complicated. It says it plain and simple, “Be doers of the Word.” We are urged to be doers and not hearers. This letter reminds us that we can listen to religious talk all day and never discover what it’s all about. It is only when we act, when we do the Christ-like thing, that we will know what Christianity is all about.
James points out that we can deceive ourselves. We can fool ourselves into thinking that hearing is enough. My secret fear about church-going is that it seems like an inoculation for many. A couple of shots, and pretty soon, we become immune to the Word of God. We say to ourselves that because we’ve spent a little time in church, that’s all that matters.
Maybe we should print Garrison Keillor’s caution at the bottom of our Sunday bulletin. Keillor once wrote, “You can become a Christian by going to church about as easily as you can become a car by sleeping in a garage.” Or, as James would put it, “Be a doer of the word and not just a hearer, deceiving yourself.”
Philosophers have noted the development in our society of what they have named, ‘The onlooker consciousness.’ Onlooker consciousness is a way of being in the world characterized by detachment; a studied disengagement adopting the guise of a perpetual tourist. Just passing through, just browsing, is what we often say to the world. The trick in our day is to keep detached, keep our distance, don’t get involved.
But Jesus would say to us, “If you want to know about me, you must follow, be immersed in ministry.” Jesus didn’t say learn about me. He said, “Follow me.”
We have a great number of courses offered in this parish. I dare say we offer more educational opportunities than most churches. But let me say this as plain as I can. If a course that we offer doesn’t motivate, train, or inspire you to some action, to some outreach, we’re wasting your time as well as our own. On every blackboard, newsprint easel, we ought to write, “Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only.”
Through the years, I’ve had many conversations with parishioners about what they look for in sermons. Often I hear them saying, “I really like a sermon that makes me think, that teaches me some new way to look at the text.” And I might add that as a preacher, the fun really comes in taking a complex, difficult passage and carefully exploring it. But the letter of James doesn’t need much explaining. It’s very straightforward. Listen. Religion that is pure and unblemished before God is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction. “To be a doer and not a hearer of the Word.” It’s hard to earn my pay as a preacher with lines like those. They don’t need a lot of explanation. But maybe, on this Kick-Off Sunday, we don’t need a lot of words from the pulpit.
Have you ever heard the old saying, “I would rather see a sermon than hear one?” (I’m sure that wasn’t directed at me.) But there is something in that saying, a nub of truth. The most powerful sermon preached at St. Philip’s will not be the words you hear from this pulpit. People have been listening to preachers for centuries, and for the most part, little has happened as a result of those sermons.
Good people, the most powerful sermon preached today is what you will do in the next hour, the next day, the next week. Who will you reach out to? What acts of Christian service will you do? That will be the real test of what is happening here. Will you be a doer and not simply a hearer?
Well, there you have it: the point of it all on this Kick-Off Sunday. We have come together to hear the Word. And the Word is a call to action, a challenge to each of us. “Be a doer and not just a hearer.” Don’t be deceived by simply sitting in a pew. That’s the point of our text. That’s the point of this coming year. James might have put it this way if he were here: “You are a minister. Now act like one.” Amen -
Labor Day
September 3, 2000
First, let me say how pleased I am to be here and see Liz. We miss her, and I really think you are most fortunate to have this talented priest as your first woman rector. I look forward to hearing how this wonderful parish has progressed under her able leadership. I also commend you all for your support during the difficult times during Ernie’s sickness. I know his loss has been extremely hard, but the good news is that a parish like this can actually be brought closer together through such tragedies.
The last time I was here was at Ernie’s funeral, but before that, it was with Leland Jones. How many were here during Leland’s time? How many remember him and remember what he accomplished during his rectorship here? How soon we forget.
A woman I spoke to recently told me about her father. He was head of a large manufacturing concern. He led them for twenty years during some of the most difficult times.
Ten years after his death, she told me that she visited the company and almost no one had ever heard of him. How quickly we are forgotten.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I returned to Connecticut a few years after I arrived in Arizona. I was walking down the street in Wilton and ran into the husband of an active member. He didn’t attend church, but his wife and I worked closely for about five years, and I had counseled the whole family. Anyway, when I met him, I must have said something about missing the old town. To which he said, “Aren’t you still the Rector here?”
“I’ve moved to Arizona,” I said. But then I was unable to keep some of my disappointment from leaking out. I said, “I can see all of you have been terribly broken up since I left.” How soon they forget.
In four months, I shall be retiring, and so this subject is close to my heart. I’m sure I’ll be saying the same thing in a year or so. How soon they forget.
Most of us, if we haven’t retired, know that we will spend most of our lives at our work. And if you’re a typical American, you will have put a great deal of yourself into your job. So on this Labor Day, I’d like to raise with you a question I’ve been wrestling with for the last couple of months.
Do you think you will be remembered for what you have accomplished in your work?
We have some biblical help with a deep question like this. Let’s turn to the middle of the Old Testament, to the Book of Ecclesiastes. It’s an older man who speaks. We don’t know his name. He’s simply referred to as ‘The Preacher.’ This fellow begins a painful process of looking over all that he has done, all his work life, all that he has accomplished over the years. And, he wonders whether it will be remembered and was it important?
Listen to his words, “I consider all that my hands had done and the toil I spent doing it, all was vanity, and a chasing after wind, for there was nothing to be gained under the Sun.” (Ecclesiastes 2: 11)
The entire chapter of this biblical book is a consideration of the result of work. The preacher tells us we work hard, we toil, creating, pursuing the almighty dollar, building, achieving. But what does it all add up to? In the words of Ecclesiastes, “All our work, despite our best efforts, is mostly vanity, or more accurately, a chasing after wind.”
I wonder if most of us, most of the time, don’t feel that way. Much of what we do is just chasing after wind. And soon it will be forgotten.
A friend of mine, several years ago, was preaching on this text, on the subject of work. And he suggested to his congregation that all work was chasing after wind, and instead of calling in sick, and then sneaking a few days off, they ought to call in well, and then take a few days off and contemplate how much of what they do will be remembered.
I want to tell you that it didn’t go over at all. He was attacking the core of what justified most people’s existence.
Let me probe a little further as we think together about work. I wonder if the preacher’s words haven’t gotten you thinking about the dull, repetitive, boring parts of your work life. We all have those parts – we don’t often admit it. Most of us aren’t involved in an assembly line, but perhaps there is even greater boredom in computer terminals and parts of our jobs that we continue to do year after year with little psychological payoff.
The other day, I ran into a bit of wisdom that could have come from the writer of Ecclesiastes, but actually came from a Divorce Recovery group that we have in our parish.
There on the blackboard in one of our meeting rooms was written, “If you always do, what you always did; you’ll always get what you always got.” That’s true in human relations as well as in the world of work. Most of us always do what we’ve always done, and we often end up bored and restless with what we get out of work. Deep down, we’re scared that the past years of work were simply chasing after the wind. And how soon we will be forgotten.
The writer of Ecclesiastes is cynical about work. He looks at life with a jaundiced eye. But maybe we have to hear that message on a day like this. Possibly, most of us are too attached to what we do. We think our work will last forever. We think our work is what gives us life. But somewhere buried in our subconscious, we know that we soon will be forgotten.
The purpose of this section of Scripture is to remind us that each of us must learn how to live a life that is more than making a living.
Only God knows what we do and what it will finally all add up to. We don’t have to keep anxiously asking ourselves, “What will last?” Time and again in Scripture, we are told that the only thing that lasts is love. In the end, all we can count on is that we have loved and have been loved in return.
Let me close our thoughts this morning by quoting some lines from one of my favorite writers, a man named Raymond Carver. He died in 1989 after struggling throughout his writings with the question of what is important. Finally, in his later life, he conquered his alcoholism and other problems and began to sort out the difference between what was transitory, soon forgotten, and what was lasting.
In the last volume published after his death, at the very end are these words.
And did you get what
You wanted from life, even so, I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.
Amen -
Can Human Nature Change?
Genesis 27: 1–4, 18-36a
John 3: 1.-8
September 21, 1998
Never ask a child a rhetorical question in public. I recently heard of a church school teacher’s trial. She had just read the section from Jeremiah that goes, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Turning to the class with a big smile, she asked, “Well, children, can a leopard change its spots?” Everyone shook his head, except Johnny. He piped up with a loud “Yes! ” There was a long silence. The harried teacher, looking up toward heaven, said, ” All right, Johnny. Tell us how a leopard can change its spots. ”
Young John replied, “I don’t see why not. If a leopard is uncomfortable with the spot, can’t it change to a different spot?’
One of the subjects with which each of us must come to grips is human nature. Can it change? Can we, figuratively, change our spots? is it Feasible for human beings to become radically different? Or are we so locked into our past, by our gales, by our former ways of doing life, that we keep repeating ourselves?
The story of Jacob, in the Bible, certainly raises this basic question. During the next three weeks, we will be focusing on this scriptural superstar. Hopefully, tr) together we can look at sane prior assumptions about ourselves and perhaps learn more about God’s ways.
Turning to the Genesis account of Jacob, we see that the scriptural writes ” let it all hang out. ” They don’t spare us any of the sordid details. To teenagers, I would remind you that you don’t have to read Rolling Stone, or even People, to learn the dirt about superstars. Just read your Bible!
We first hear of Jacob through his birth. He is the second twin of twins , and because of the unfortunate uterine placemat, he misses out on the inheritance which goes to the older brother, Esau. at best, is a traumatic experience , but when you combine it with losing one’s legacy by a matter of a far minutes, you can see how this might color one’s existence.
Graphically, the Bible pictures Jacob as crawling out of Rebecca’s womb hanging on to esau’s heels, and we could say that his entire life consisted of grabbing clutching and trying to gain what was lost by his unfortunate placement at birth. Can’t you imagine the National Enquirer headlines for this youngster? We get an insight into jacob’s characters. Somehow he manages to be in charge of the food supply, and when his brother he saw his starving Jacob holds on until he gets him to sign over his inheritance. Not a very brotherly act but one of the themes of biblical history is that brothers, starting with the first pair, Cain and Abel, seemed always to be at odds. Maybe that’s why we have so much bloodshed throughout the Old Testament?
Getting back to Jake then. A few years later, following some bad maternal advice, Jacob tricks his blind father into giving him a blessing that was to go to esau. Does this by wearing a disguise of sheepskin. This may be the origin of the same, pulling the wool over someone’s eyes. Not surprisingly, after this scam, Jacob had to leave town and flee for his life. But Jacob, the flimflam artist is never one to let temporary setbacks dictate his future. He goes to his father-in-law and bilks him out of much of the family wealth. Jacob then returns and settles down to become one of our forefathers. It’s like having a horse thief in the family tree. You know he’s there but you don’t mention him in polite company.
In broad generalities, these are some of the scandalous facts about our grandfather Jacob. If we stop here, however, the real value will be missed. There are lessons to be learned beyond the gossip this morning, I want to concentrate on some insights about human nature.
Psychiatry since Freud has laid such great stress on the beginnings of human behavior that we can scarcely believe that our natures, basic personalities, can be transformable we may argue over whether it’s environmental or natural, but no one questions that somehow the past determines our future behavior.
I am reminded of the old fable of the turtle and the scorpion. The scorpion, being a very poor swimmer, asked the turtle to carry him across the river on his back. Are you mad? Replied the turtle you will sting me while I’m swimming and I’ll drown. My dear turtle, laughed the scorpion, if I were to sting you you would go down and I will go down with you now what’s the logic in that?
You’re right, cried the turtle hop on! The scorpion climbed aboard and halfway across the river gave the turtle a mighty sting and they began to sink in the depths. The turtle, with quiet resignation said, do you mind if I ask you something? You said there would be no logic in stinging me. Why did you do it? The drowning scorpion sadly responded, it has nothing to do with logic, it is just my nature.
Ohh don’t we think this is true to life? Our past determines, shapes, and molds our actions in the future and human nature pretty much stays the same isn’t that what we believe?
Ohh wait! As the old porgy and Bess song goes, it ain’t necessarily so. Particularly if we are dealing with God. One of the first lessons we learned, if we would relate authentically with the God of scriptures, is that change is always a possibility. When God is in the picture we cannot foreclose on any life or any situation. It is Christian to believe that human nature can be changed, how it works I do not know. I don’t believe there is any single way or stereotypical process. It can happen to thieves and princesses. It can happen in times of prosperity and times of want. It could happen 6000 years before Christ to a desert nomad, or it can happen 1986 years after Christ’s birth to a city resident. This I do know, change happens by the power and glory of God’s action.
The Greeks called this process or action, metanoia. The turning around of an individual by God’s grace. We often call conversion, although I am going to turn and leave it for television preachers, but by whatever name we want to label it the result is a new beginning, a complete change about, a change of personality in the process of being reborn.
The Christian faith affirms that we don’t simply mature or ripen away all of the Jews. Most of us, deep down, believe in maturation. What the gospel tells us is that people are lifted to a higher different, changed the way of life through the miraculous action of God. It is not a matter of doing more of the same, or better. This has to do with becoming other than we are.
Rudolph Volkswagen, the theologian that many of us studied in seminary put it this way, metanoia calls for understanding the discontinuity involved in life. Conversion, another name for this, is something more than A person being improved. And means that we received a new origin.
It’s difficult to analyze what happened to Jacob, as he is to understand what happened to Saint Matthew, to Saul of tarsus, to nicodemus, to Augustine, to Francis of Assisi to Martin Luther or to CS Lewis to name a few. They changed. They experienced metanoia. The love of him, the spirit of God, the glory of God touched their lives and they became different turned around people. The question today I would raise is do you believe in metanoia? Do you believe this can happen to you today or tomorrow or next week?
Martin buber has reminded us that there is a radical difference between the past and the future. We learned this lesson if we look closely at Jacob. His past didn’t dominate his future, at one point in his life, God reached out to the person who had defrauded his brother, deceived his father, and cheated is in law. God reached out, turned him around and said, you will be blessed and your descendants will go on forever. And you will be known as the grandfather of my people.
The word of the Lord is very simple, but I believe his profound implications, particularly so as we anticipate the New Years ahead in our church life. The word that change is possible and human nature, for remember the God we worship is the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, as well as Jesus. And remember, the God we worship is the one who brings new life out of old. And remember, the God we worship brings descendants, you and me, from the most I’m promising forbearers.
So let’s close our thoughts with this blessing. May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob be with us all, this day and forevermore. Amen -
Consumerism vs. Compassion
Luke 16: 1-3
September 24, 1995
Listen to the words of Amos: “Hear this, you who trample upon the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end.” Who me? Surely, he isn’t referring to me. A church-going, card-carrying, collar-wearing Christian. But then again, it is to the religious person that Amos targets his message.
I have a confession to make. I don’t like prophets. They make me uncomfortable. They have a way of saying things that make us feel, at best, slightly dissatisfied and, at worst, downright guilty. They challenge the status quo and force us to look below the surface of our actions. Prophets call into question our priorities and our values.
Let me introduce you to four prophets. Their words, their actions, and their lives have made me distinctly uncomfortable through the years.
The first is a writer of soul-oriented psychology. his name is James Hillman. In one of his articles, he says, ‘We have become the incarnation of our credit cards. We, in America, know a lot about getting, saving, and spending, but in the process, we have basically developed an impoverished imagination. We have forgotten about giving, sharing, and loving.” And that amnesia, Hillman predicts, is going to make us all beggars at the same time that we are the richest nation in the world. Hillman ends his analysis by saying, ‘We have learned to deal with each other because we are a nation of dealers. But we’ve never learned to love each other – and therefore, we’re rapidly becoming the third world of spite.
When I hear something like that, I feel a certain disease. I find myself asking what’s the most important object on my person – the one thing I could least afford to lose. It suddenly occurs to me that it’s my credit cards. When that realization comes, I want to put down Hillman and pick up a novel – preferably with a happy ending. I want to be alive, but only slightly. And I don’t want some prophet shining God’s light upon my life.
Another contemporary prophet, in my estimation, was Mahatma Gandhi – not a Christian, but a voice that often used Christian metaphors.
As Gandhi looked at our Western culture, he said that we were subject to seven deadly sins similar to the medieval sins, which led people to hell.
The first was wealth without work, which he felt was the root cause of our gross consumerism. The second was pleasure without conscience. Our society, he felt, was on a constant search for happiness that we call fun. This easily leads us to having a good time without weighing the consequences. Knowledge without character is the third sin. We have lots of technical know-how, but we are impoverished when it comes to knowing how to use it.
The fourth is science without humanity. Our technology is way ahead of our capacity to deal in a humane way with the world we are constructing. The fifth sin Gandhi mentions was politics without principle. Over 50 years ago, he predicted that when political campaigns were undergirded by advertising, candidates would ride any horse as long as it meant a good image and thus votes. The sixth sin was worship without sacrifice. And here he questioned the notion that we could relate to God without it costing us dearly. Finally, he mentioned commerce without morality. This was the sin of spending money without a thought of returning it to its rightful owner.
Prophets like Gandhi remind us that our actions do matter. And that there are such things as deadly sins which can lead us to perdition. What these prophets are trying to tell us is that life is not like the Burger King ads, which tell us: “Have it your own way.” Just hold the pickles, and we’ll have a little bit of relish. When I listen to Gandhi’s deadly sins, I begin to get the feeling of that old-time hymn, “It’s me, It’s me, It’s me, O Lord – Standing in the need of prayer.”
My third prophet is a 78-year-old Albanian nun named Teresa Bojaxiu, better known as Mother Teresa. Several years ago, this world-renowned figure came to Washington, D.C., to establish an outpost for nine of her sisters of charity. She could have commanded an airport welcome by a host of government bigwigs, addressed a joint session of Congress, or attracted thousands by preaching at one of the great Cathedrals of the city. Instead, she went as inconspicuously as possible to a troubled and neglected corner of the city. She went to an old red brick church. A reporter followed her into that stark church with its cracked, chipped plaster walls and asked her what she hoped to accomplish in this place. “The joy of loving and being loved,” she answered with a smile. The reporter looked puzzled and said, “That takes a lot of money, doesn’t it?’ Mother Teresa shook her head, “No, it takes a lot of sacrifice.”
In a culture where money speaks – where our self-worth is often judged by our net worth – where appearances are so important that we are taught to dress for success – where we are quick to balance budgets on the backs of the poor and less fortunate parts of our society that diminutive woman with a wrinkled leather face was talking about sharing, suffering, and caring for people who are dying. When I read the paper in the morning, I wonder whether we are living on the same planet as Mother Teresa.
My final prophet is Jesus, who is a part of that prophetic tradition that includes Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, and all those Old Testament giants who see the world through God’s eyes, and call us to re-evaluate our cultural norms.
Jesus was a prophet. He was more than that, certainly, but never less than that. Many theologians have pointed out that he was put to death, not because he was a teacher, nor because he was spiritual, but simply because of his prophetic pronouncements.
The parable that we read this morning is sometimes called the parable of the unjust steward, and is much more of a prophetic word than we often think.
On the surface, as a teaching, it seems to be an outrageous story. A money manager is about to undergo an audit by his boss. In order to gain favor from his customers, he begins to discount their indebtedness. And here is the bizarre part. When the boss finds out, he commends his employee. Ridiculous, you say, but this is not a primer on successful business practices. If we were to look below the surface and see this story as a prophetic utterance, we would see it in a different light.
As a prophet, Jesus is raising questions, probing our cherished values, and asking us to re-examine our priorities. Beneath the surface, the story is asking, “Are we here to make a profit? Do we see people as primarily consumers? Are we a nation of dealers? Or are we here to show compassion and reach out to those less fortunate? Jesus ends with pointing out that you cannot serve the God of consumerism and the God of compassion at the same time.
Prophets – they make me uncomfortable. I sometimes wonder where the prophetic voice is today when I read about the disadvantaged in our world. The other day, I passed a car with the bumper sticker: “Born to Shop,” and I began to ask myself, “Are we born for shopping or for loving?” Consumerism vs. compassion. Taking care of ourselves or watching for the needy. You can’t serve both those values. He, she, who has ears to hear – let them hear. . .. AMEN -
“Becoming A Person Of Substance”
Luke 16: 19-31
September 27, 1992
Lillian Hellman, the playwright once wrote: “God help all children as they move into a time of life they do not understand and must struggle through with precepts they have picked from the garbage cans of older people, clinging with the passion of the lost to the odds and ends that will mess them up for all time.”
I sometimes wonder how many parents pass on garbage so that “children will cling with passion to the odds and ends that will mess them up for all time.” I sometimes shudder to think of how many precepts we’ve passed on under the guise of good advice. I sometimes agonize as a parent to think how much we have messed up our children and probably subsequent generations.
That was the issue for the rich man in our Gospel this morning. There he was, stranded in hell. Finally coming to the realization that much of what he had been taught, he clung to passionately, had messed him up for all time. So he calls out to Father Abraham (not our John), “Abraham, go to my family and help them to unlearn those damaging lessons, help them to change those precepts that had been taken in isn’t terribly optimistic, I’m afraid to say. He answers, “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they change if someone should rise from the dead.”
I am more confident: I have faith that God will keep trying, and I have a hunch if we can acknowledge what those precepts are, and how powerful a hold they have on us, we can begin, by the grace of God, to put them aside. In other words, I don’t think the rich man and his family were necessarily doomed to spend eternity in hell. There is a possibility of redemption, but first you have to recognize where you are (and I admit this takes imagination). And then you have to be willing to change.
We can speculate all we want about what some of the rich man’s precepts. What the garbage was that messed him up and caused him to land in hell. But I would suggest it might be a better exercise to ask what precepts, what odds and ends, have shaped our lives.
Let me share with you one of those precepts that I ingested unconsciously as I grew up. I was taught, subliminally, that one ought to become “a person of substance. Security, community standing, and happiness all seemed to depend upon being “a person of substance.” The odds and ends of what it meant to be a person of substance were picked up from the garbage cans of older people around me.
But let me switch the spotlight from me to you, or as someone said a few months ago, let’s stop preaching and start meddling. And let me ask you, “Do you think you are a person of substance?” Or if not, why? That’s the fundamental question every Christian must answer. Each of us truly needs to ask ourselves, “What am I worth?” And then we have to determine whether or not that makes us a person of substance. So what makes you wealthy or what makes you poor? What makes you worth a lot, or what makes you a marginal member of society? Who makes you a person of substance, or what makes you a person of substance?
A week ago Saturday night, I attended one of those black-tie with all the movers and shakers of the community were present: the governor, our congressmen, the mayor, most of the big businessmen, the heads of our educational institutions, even a bishop! Watching the parade of important people, I started asking myself, “Were these the people of substance? Were these the truly wealthy, and of what did their wealth consist?”
We have been taught and are under the illusion that money gives us substance. Or our bank accounts determine our standing in the community. But that’s just not true.
What gives us substance is that elusive thing we call character. And character is related directly to desire. Your character is molded in terms of your desires, your wants. Show me your want list or wish list, and I’ll tell you your character. For what you desire most, you become; what you hold closest, you become; what you wish for is what you become. Can you see that becoming a person of substance has everything to do with your character and little to do with what you have or will acquire?
Jesus contrasts the rich man with Lazarus. The rich man, sitting in hell, was only rich in material possessions. Lazarus had other, more important gifts: character, friends, community, relationships, and faith. All of which meant the person of substance was Lazarus and not the rich man.
Don’t misunderstand this Gospel lesson. Jesus is not glorifying poverty; Jesus simply is saying we are judged not on what we have, but rather on what we have given away. Stewardship is the ultimate test of substance, not ownership. Stewardship has to do with what you do with what has been given to you. Ownership has to do with what you have gotten. Put away half for your own benefit.
Karen said it very well last week in her sermon on community. She said the community is dependent on how much we can surrender, not on what we bring to the community. And that’s the secret of The Divine Community: the key to the Kingdom is dependent on what you have given away, not on what you have acquired. You enter into heaven on the basis of stewardship, not the basis of ownership.
Leo Bascaglia, the delightful, irreverent teacher and writer, was quoted as saying, “I have found myself in recent years unlearning more than I am learning. I am unlearning all the garbage I have collected.” As a child, I, too, learned a lot of garbage about what it means to be a person of substance. I thought it meant owning a lot, acquiring a lot, having a lot of toys. I now find it means something entirely different. I’m unlearning much of what I’ve learned (and I’m doing this by stretching my imagination) .
There is a later addition to the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Imagine, if you will, that the rich man had died and was in Hades, the place of eternal torment. In his agony, he cried out for mercy. “Abraham,” he cried, ‘take me up to where you are.” At last, Abraham came to him and said, “I can only help you if you remember one unselfish thing you did while on earth.”
It seemed easy at first, but when the rich man began reciting his good deeds, Abraham looked them UP and they all seemed to be done out of self-interest. Nothing was wrong with his giving except that it didn’t count in terms of truly self-giving. Finally, at the point of despair, the rich man remembered a scrap he had once given to Lazarus sitting outside his gate. The rich man hated to mention it because it wasn’t much of a scrap. It was an onion, a poor, withered thing, a table scrap. But finally, he did mention it, and Abraham consulted the record. Sure enough, this one act had been prompted by unselfishness. Here was a true act of stewardship.
So down the limitless space that separated heaven from hell, the onion was lowered on a slender string. The rich man was commanded to grab hold of the onion in order to be lifted out of the place of torment. He grabbed hold of the onion and slowly began to rise. Then he felt a weight dragging at his feet. He looked down and saw other tormented souls clinging to him, hoping to escape with him.
“Let Go! Let go!” the rich man cried. “The onion won’t hold all of us.” But grimily, desperately, they held on, as the onion lifted them toward heaven.
Again he said let go, it’s mine. It’s my onion.„ At that point, the string broke. And still clutching the onion he had claimed for himself, the rich man fell back into hell.
Our whole life can be interpreted by that story. Are we people of substance? People who hear the words, “Welcome, my son, my daughter, this is the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of time.” Or are we poor people clutching our onions to ourselves, saying, “It’s mine. it’s mine.”
There is a line in one of GB Shaw’s plays;
Near the end, one of the characters says, “I was very stupid! I did cruel things because I didn’t understand,” and the reply is made, “Must then Christ die to be raised, in every age, to save those who have no imagination?”
I wonder, I wonder. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Amen -
The First Shall Be Last and The Last Shall Be First
James 3: 12 – 4: 6; Mark 9: 30-37
September 21, 1997
Last week, I preached on the text, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” My basic thesis was that God loves the losers, those who are last, the low performers, the failures in life. I felt pretty good about the sermon until 7:45 on Sunday, when I heard Liz’s interpretations of the same text. Suddenly, I began to feel uncomfortable. Liz’s interpretation was that God loved everyone. The first as well as the last. After listening to the text, I realized that was a closer rendering of the message of Jesus. What should I do? Throw away that on which I had spent twenty hours of blood, sweat, and tears? Should I use the time between 8:30 and 9 to doctor it up? Those of you who were here know I didn’t do any of the above. Instead, I promised I would revisit the text next week.
I believe the reason we tend to miss the interpretation that God treats everyone the same is that we hardly ever do in our own relationships. Deep down, we know without a doubt that some people are bigger and some are smaller, some are brighter and some are less bright, some are younger and some older, some are richer and some poorer. It’s almost a fact of life that we tend to be aware of differences. Many times we even celebrate these differences. How many cars have you seen lately that have written on them: My child is on the honor roll of such and such a school? The only problem is that for your child to be on the honor roll, someone else’s child is probably off it. But let’s cut right to the chase. We are, by nature, “comparing creatures.” And we, by our very nature, want to know where we stand in relation to the people around us. Am I higher or lower, greater or lesser than someone else? By comparing, I begin to know something about where I stand in relation to where you stand. Maybe I can tell what my step might be on the ladder.
Now, striving to find oneself on the ladder and then wanting to be at the top of the ladder isn’t all bad. After all, I would hate to be operated upon by a surgeon who said he wasn’t trying, to be the best. Who wants to go under the knife with the second-rater? Or I would hate to be in an airplane flown by a pilot who didn’t want to be the greatest, the safest, the most competent flyer in the air. We not only want to be the best, but we have been given the capacity to be aware of others, where they stand. We are, by nature, comparing individuals.
The problem starts when we begin to compare ourselves unfavorably to others. This is where discontent enters the picture. We see if we are number two, someone else is number one. If someone else gets the prize, then we will have missed the prize, for we are convinced there are only so many prizes to go around. This discontent quickly slips into the sin of jealousy.
There is an old fable, told by Oscar Wilde, about the devil who was stalking the Libyan desert. He came upon a group of fiends who were trying to tempt a pious, holy hermit. They tried him with seductions of the flesh, they tried to sour his mind with doubts and fears- They told him that all of his sufferings were worth nothing. But the holy man did not flinch.’ Then the devil took over. He said, “What you do is crude, permit me for one moment.” Then he whispered to the hermit, “Have you heard the news? Your brother has been made Bishop of Alexandria.” Oscar Wilde said, “A scowl of malignant jealousy clouded the serene face of the holy man.”
What is it that makes us want to compare ourselves to others and then become filled with discontent? What is it that makes envy and jealousy rear their ugly head? Right from the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve wrestled with this problem of wanting to be like God. Moses came down from the mountain top and called this problem “covetousness” – the envy over what someone else has or has accomplished.
Did you ever question the right of the Tenth Commandment to be there? I mean, after all those juicy sins like stealing, adultery, and murder? Whoever put these commandments together didn’t have much of a sense of climax. He should have started with the throwaway sin of coveting and worked up to the big stuff.
And yet, it is so true that the commandment, “Thou shalt not covet,” finds us, whether our bag is theology or academia, whether we be hard hats or homemakers. The spirit of covetousness, jealousy, and this discontent with where we are is the root of much unhappiness today.
And so it was with the disciples. Even as they walked along with Jesus, they were still trying to figure out who was the greatest, who would be the number one disciple. And each one coveted that position. That old throw-away sin began to take hold, and sure enough they began to see each other as rivals. “Who would be the greatest?” they; began to speculate.
The gospels are honest. They don’t try to gossip about the sins of their characters. The disciples are very human, and they treat each other as competitors… assuming that if one is ahead, the other is behind.
But Jesus interrupts this one-upmanship conversation by placing a child in their midst. He declares, ‘that even a little child is ahead of them in the kingdom. And the only valid comparison is the comparison in service, not status.
I think we need to hear this story to offset our tendency to covet. I think we need to hear this to understand that we live in the kingdom of abundance, where God’s love is measured out to all, “indiscriminately.” And if I am first, you don’t have to be second. You, too, can be on the honor roll.
There are only two choices to cure covetousness. One is to level the playing field, which is unreal. There are differences in people. The other is to learn to rejoice in another’s success. And one can do that if you truly believe that you are living in the kingdom of abundance, where God’s love is given to all, and the first as well as the last are equally accepted into the kingdom.
Let me end our thoughts with a 10th-century parable, old by the rabbis. It’s the story of a Jewish farmer who, while working in the fields, met up with an angel of God. The angel said, “HaiI Jacob, you have found favor with the Master of the Universe. You shall be granted three wishes. The only proviso is that your neighbor Isaac will receive double.”
Now, Jacob was a poor man, barely scraping out a living, so right away he asked for 100 cows. This would make him the most successful farmer in the area. Sure enough, there miraculously appeared in his field one hundred cows. Jacob went to bed that night giving thanks to the Master of the Universe. The next day, when he awoke, the sounds of his neighbor’s 200 cows, and much of the joy from his unexpected windfall, left him.
Later on in the week, when he had told his wife, she suggested that he ask for a Child, an heir. They were childless. Nine months later, his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. And that Saturday, Jacob went to the synagogue and gave thanks for the gift of a child. All went well until he spied his neighbor, Isaac, who was on the other side of the synagogue, giving thanks for a pair of twins. Jacob was furious.
All week, Jacob thought of the unfairness of it all and how he might best his neighbor. Finally, he came up with the solution. That night, he got on his knees and prayed, “Master of the Universe, for my last request, I would ask that you put out one of my eyes.”
At that moment, the angel appeared. “You foolish son of Abraham. You would sacrifice half your eyes so that your neighbor becomes blind. It is God’s desire to bless and not to fulfill your sidelong glances of jealousy. God is a God of compassion. God’s abundance is plentiful . . . for misusing the request, they all will be taken back.”
The rabbis’ parable is one to contemplate. The temptation for jealousy and envy are always present, particularly when we think in scarcity terms. What if we believed that we lived in the kingdom of abundance? What if we believed the first and the last were all the same in God’s kingdom?
He, she, who has ears to hear – let them hear.
Amen -
Homecoming 1994
Hebrews 11: 13-16
Luke 15: 1-10
September 11, 1994
Today, we celebrate ‘homecoming Sunday.” I really appreciate the committee’s (changing the name from ‘Welcome Back.” Every year, with the old name, I would be stopped by the more regular church-goers asking why they were being welcomed back when they had never been away. Very confusing!
Well, this year the committee changed the name to “Homecoming.” It seemed to have a more seasonal feel. Most universities and other similar institutions celebrate some kind of day where students, faculty, and alumni all come together, marking a special time – a day of meetings, a day of festivities, a day of celebration. The only ingredient we seem to be lacking is a point of high drama – The Big Football Game, where we can cheer the team, second-guess the coach, and fantasize that we are on the playing field. In place of that, we have the drama of the Eucharist. The Eucharist – where you can cheer the teams, second-guess the preacher, and even leave the stands and get on the playing field by emerging from the pew and walking up to the altar.
But enough with names and analogies. Homecoming it is. Homecoming for you, for me, and for all of us together. This celebration affords me an opportunity to express my gratitude for being with you at this time and at this holy place. Putting it in a more theological and broader context, I am grateful for being able to walk with you on this pilgrimage homeward. Our Epistle reminds us we are strangers and exiles seeking a homeland.
There are two moments I treasure the most during a Sunday. First, I enjoy going amongst you and greeting you before the service starts. I find there are strangers here from all over the world, and I get the feeling as if I am welcoming them to my house. To tell the truth, I sometimes fantasize that I come down the aisle using that wonderful Spanish greeting: ‘MI casa es su casa.” (My house is your house.)
The second moment I find most moving is during the distribution of bread and wine at Communion. Looking at the variety of faces – young and old, rich and poor, joyful and sad, hopeful and jaded, expectant and bored, searching and cynical – all reminding me that around the altar we are given a foretaste of the heavenly banquet where we all together will be made welcome to our real home. We are like the people described in the letter to the Hebrews – these strangers, these exiles, not having received what was promised, but we greet it from afar.
Every Communion, for me, then, is like a letter from home – hinting at what it will be like when I ultimately will complete my journey, my pilgrimage, and God will say: ‘Welcome home, Roger. Your place at the table is waiting. We have killed the fatted calf. We rejoice for all is ready. For this, my son, my daughter, was lost, but now is found.”
Homecoming – this is what our service is all about, Sunday after Sunday. This is what our magnificent church is all about. It is not our home, but it is a reminder, a foretaste from afar, a hint of where we are going and who we are. Pilgrims lost sheep – lost coins – on a journey home.
The question I would raise with you this morning is about expectations. Do you see yourselves as persons on a journey homeward? Do you see yourselves as lost sheep? Do you see this liturgy as a lively recollection of what homecoming will be like? Or is it a dead service – merely an obligation, a habit, entertaining, but not life-giving?
Somewhere, around 30 years ago, the English director, Peter Brook, took his production of Shakespeare’s King Lear to the Soviet Union and to the United States. Recently, he wrote an article comparing the differences in Moscow and Philadelphia. One audience was open to the drama – the other was not.
In Moscow, 30 years ago, the play was a huge success. The audience brought with them three essential things for good theatre. First, they brought a love of the drama. Second, they brought a sense of expectation that something would happen to them as a result of being there. And lastly, and above all, they brought the willingness to make connections with the play’s themes and their own life experiences.
In Philadelphia, on the other hand, it didn’t go as well.
The actors performed competently, but the audience was not really that interested. It was more of a social event. There was not as much love, hunger, or connections. There were no ingredients in Philadelphia for good theatre.
That’s similar to the church – good or bad theatre, good or bad audiences – good or bad liturgy. Are we expecting, hungering, for a taste of home? Are we making connections between the Gospel and our own lives? Or are we simply here to be entertained religiously? As I’ve often lamented, this is the best show in town for under five bucks.
A short while ago, we sang that popular hymn, “Amazing Grace.” I sometimes wonder whether we understand the words we so glibly sing. In the first stanza, the words are: “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound – that saved a ‘wretch’ like me.” Do we know what it means to be a wretch? I looked it up and found the word “wretch” refers to the magi – the wise men who traveled from far-off lands, bringing gifts to the Christ child. A wretch is an exile, a stranger, one far from home, one who is hungry for home, one who is homesick.
Is that what we might say about ourselves? Can we say, using St. Augustine’s famous words: “Our hearts are restless, until they find their rest in thee.”? Are we alive to, aware of, and anticipating a journey home?
So, let me welcome you to this homecoming celebration. You who are wretched, you who are journeyers, you who are pilgrims, you who are searchers, you who are exiles, you who are sinners, you who are sons and daughters of God. Welcome to the feast where the host says to each one of us: “MI casa es su casa.” AMEN. -
“Welcome Back”
September 10, 1995
A friend of mine recently became rector of St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City. He recounts this story. One Sunday, a seedy-looking man came to the main service. He walked right past the ushers and sat up front, just under the pulpit. When the rector started to preach, he enthusiastically and loudly responded to each point made in the sermon. Every few sentences, he would let out an “Amen, Amen, brother!” But the man didn’t stop there. In the middle of the sermon, he turned to the people around him and said, “The preacher’s really got the spirit. Let’s all say, ‘Amen.’
This was just too much for the ushers in the back, so one of them in his pin-striped suit and boutonniere quietly came down the aisle and sat beside him and said, “Sir, I’m sorry – we don’t do that here.” “But, but,” the seedy man said, “I can’t help it. I’ve got religion!” The pin-striped usher turned to him with a look of utter amazement and said, ‘Well, sir, I don’t know where you got religion, but you certainly didn’t get it here.”
As we start our fall season, it’s worth thinking about religion. What is it? Where did you get it? Do you have it? Have you found it here?
The word “religion” comes from “religio” in Latin, which means to tie back, or to pull something together. And it refers to what we do as we try to pull our lives together, as we attempt to deepen our ties to God. This is our religion.
Moses, that Old Testament giant to whom we owe so much of our understanding of religion, put it so clearly. “I have set before you life and death – choose.” Religion, therefore, is bringing it all together and choosing life over death. Choosing to come alive over simply existing. Choosing to be a participant in life rather than sitting on the sidelines.
That man at St. Bartholomew’s, however un-Anglican, was at the very least saying, ‘I’m alive. I’ve got the spirit. I’ve got religion. I’ve chosen life over death.”
The great problem for most Christians is not that we don’t believe, not that we don’t know about the Bible; not that we don’t go to church ( at least as some English clergy have taught me – we Anglicans know enough to get hatched, matched and dispatched from the church). The great problem for many of us is that we’re not alive.
Let me share with you a hunch. Most Christians are not alive. They haven’t caught the spirit because they have become vaccinated with a weekly dose of Christianity. In that weekly dose, they have been told that all they have to have for life is to embrace a second-hand knowledge of religion – hearing, singing what others have believed never realizing that they must experience life first-hand. They must choose life over death.
Joseph Campbell, who made such an impact a few years back with ‘The Power of Myth”, said it so well. “I don’t believe,” he said, “that what most people want is to find the meaning of life, nor rules to live by. What they want is an experience of being alive.”
We turn our thoughts to Jesus. As I read Scripture, one major characteristic of our Lord was that he never let a person sit back, retire, rest on his or her laurels, be content with one’s reputation, be a spectator, or sit on the bench. This was the beginning of death – the death of one’s relationship with God. Jesus was always focused on beginnings, not endings. And He believed that beginnings were costly.
For Jesus, it wasn’t simply good enough to be a member. Membership may have its privileges, as the American Express slogan goes, but discipleship has its demands. It calls us out from stagnation to movement, from safety to risk, from endings to beginnings, from stability to chaos, from spectatorship to participation, from death to life.
I resonate with Jesus’s illustration of salt. It’s so basic, down to earth. If salt sits around, remains in a salt shaker – it’s going to lose its taste. We are reminded that if salt is to be alive, it must be used, spread out on food, tasted, flavored, and ingested. And so it is with us. Religion – if it is to be useful, life-giving, zesty – must be used, passed on, spread about, alive.
One of my favorite authors, as many of you know, is Nikos Kazantzakis. In his autobiography, he writes, We know that here on earth for the full span of our lives, Christ is not the harbor where one casts anchor, but the harbor from which one departs, to encounter a wild and tempestuous sea and then struggles for a lifetime” (and we would say becoming fully alive in the struggle). Kazantzakis continues, “Christ is not the end. He is the beginning. He is not welcome. He is bon voyage.”‘
I love that line. Jesus is not here to welcome us, but to say Bon voyage.” And so we might say today that we are not here for Welcome Back Sunday, but rather that we might begin our voyage – our journey in coming alive. How’s that for a slogan? ‘Let’s come alive in ’95.”
Now I would like to invite you to finish this sermon with me_ This is a do-it-yourself sermon. I want to test and see if you can be like that man at St. Bartholomew’s. I want to see if any of you are alive in ’95.
Can you say the word “Amen”? Can you say that? Okay. Amen is a letting-go word. It’s a word you say as you end a prayer, but it’s a call to action. It’s a word that ties you to God and means, “me, too, God.” It’s a word that brings it all together. It’s a word that blesses the past, loves the present, and hopes for the future. I don’t know of any place that God needs to hear some “Amens” from more than at St. Philip’s. Not everybody can say it in a lively way, but we can try. By God, we can try in ’95. Would you say it again for me? “Amen.”
That Amen means that we’re all together here. We’re living out a life here, where people come and love one another. Where we can taste the bread of life together. Where we can feel the spirit of life growing in us. Where can we meet the risen Lord who calls us out to become salt of the earth? Where can we come alive in ’95?
Amen. -
The beginnings of our Sacred Journey
Exodus 3: 1-6
September 10, 1989
Welcome back. Welcome back to this place where God speaks to us. Welcome back to this place where we wait, and watch, and wonder, and worship. Welcome back to this place where we are enabled to hear the voice of God.
Welcome back. You may not know it, but you’re on a journey. Our task this morning is to make you aware, conscious of your sacred journey, and have you joined hands with others as we travel together in the coming year.
Our pilgrimage starts this fall by focusing our attention on Moses, that seminal Old Testament figure whose life story is 1 long journey. We begin our study of Moses not at the start of his career, but with the youthful exploits of a young man driven by a sense of justice. No. You pick up the story at midlife for it’s here that Moses starts to discern the shape of his sacred journey. As some wag once said, youth is wasted on the young. I suppose I shouldn’t be saying this when we set aside this year as focusing on youth. But usually, young people haven’t the experience or insight to view life as a journey.
Many young people I talk with see life as preparation for a pilgrimage, or simply a series of random events. I suppose you have to have some pain and suffering, some Gray hair and bifocals before you can become aware of the nature of the journey.
But back to Moses. Our Old Testament lesson picks up the Moses chronicle when he is living in Midian. Moses is no longer the youthful fire-eater filled with vim and vigor, brimming over with concern for the downtrodden. by this time, Moses has married, has children, and made a place for himself in the community. He had settled into the mundane life of a sheep rancher. The causes that gave passion and excitement to life have been replaced by security, routine, and retirement.
But then one day, out there on the desert, Moses has an experience, an experience that makes him aware that there is more to life than meets the eye. Out there in the wilderness, Moses sees a Bush and within the Bush of flame appears to be burning, not a particularly unnatural happening. Scrub bushes often catch fire in the desert yet in this case, the flame doesn’t consume the Bush itself. A miracle perhaps, but most people would simply see it as a quirk of nature.
Moses, we read, turns aside to view this happening. The important part of the story is that he consciously makes a choice. There are many options. It was late in the day and he could have glanced quickly at the site and talked about it at dinner. If he’d had a camera, he might have snapped a picture and sent it to a magazine. Or, like many Old Testament figures he could have set up a shrine and invited his neighbors to worship. If you really want to let your imagination go, you could picture Moses as a BC entrepreneur marketing the miracle. Come to Midian in the fall when it turns cooler. See the sights. Taking a miracle. Sign up with Doctor Moses, the expert on burning bushes.
But no. Instead, he turns aside. He waits, he watches, he wonders. Somehow by God’s grace he realizes this is the beginning of a journey. Suddenly, the very ground he is walking upon becomes holy ground. The very moment becomes a sacred moment, and the sacred journey commences.
The first thing that happens when you’re on a sacred journey is that God speaks to you and more often than not you are given a task. And if you’re anything like Moses, you’ll try to weasel out of it, or suddenly you’ll become deaf. God speaks to me? Don’t be ridiculous.
Whenever I feel this way, I think of the magnificent lines from George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan. Joan of Arc is asked how she knows that her actions are the right ones. She replies, I know the voices come from God, whereas King Charles, who has been listening, interrupts in an exasperated tone, Ohh your voices, your voices. Why don’t the voices come to me? I am king? Joan responds softly, they do come to you, but you do not hear them.
The journey began for Moses at a place called Midian. It started with a burning Bush. Not a very remarkable incident, but for Moses it was the key moment, the moment he became aware of his sacred journey.
For each of us there is a different moment. We see burning bushes in different ways. We have different tales to tell of where and when and how our journey began. Perhaps there was no single incident, but rather a series of moments that started us off. For me, there was an incident, a small moment in time, when a scraggly black youngster slammed his books on my car. It took place on the Lower East Side of New York. I was there looking for a temporary job teaching kids, working as a social worker for a few months in between college and the Air Force. A boy, obviously poor and angry, saw my shiny car and this affluent white do-gooder who didn’t belong in the neighborhood, sitting there snoozing. And so he took his tide up books, struck the hood with all his might and dented the car. It was as if he were saying, I’ll never have a car like this. Or, why don’t you stay Uptown?
I could have honked the horn, jumped out and grabbed him, called a cop for telephone my insurance person. Instead, I looked into the youngster’s eyes. I can’t remember what was contained in them, but from then on I knew I was on a sacred journey, a sacred journey that began 36 years ago on the Lower East Side of New York.
Moments like this, and others no less small and insignificant, are the stuff of a sacred journey. Who knows where it started for you? Sometimes, only your unconscious registers will start. Sometimes when you sit quietly and meditate, you can remember where the burning Bush and God spoke, and you were on holy ground.
I know most of the psychological theories about my experience of mine. I have done my share of analyzing and rationalizing of that happening over the years, but the turning aside, that day, and seeing into the youngster’s eyes is still a part of me. It wasn’t a very big beginning, nor was it terribly dramatic, but I’m sure, sure as anything, that I began a sacred journey.
This summer I reread Frederick Buckner’s The Sacred Journey. It’s one of the great books on a person’s religious pilgrimage. Let me share with you a brief passage.
There is no event so commonplace that God is not present within it, always hidden, always leaving you room to recognize him or not. Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that he is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and the gladness, touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it. Because in the last analysis, all moments are key moments.
So on this wonderful day of welcome, when you come to claim your parish church, I ask you to look around. Look at the mountains. Look at the desert from within the window, and see it covered with burning bushes. Look at your neighbor and see her for him as a fellow traveler, a Pilgrim. And look at yourself and realize you are on a sacred journey.
Amen
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