Not Yet Perfect

Yesterday, October 27, was Reformation-Reconciliation Sunday. This Sunday is celebrated in some faith traditions on the Sunday closest to October 31. (Read the sermon to find out why.) In honor of that day, I preached this sermon. If you choose to read it, ask yourself: Are you ready to pray for Christian unity; or do you like things the way they are now?

I don’t know if any of the parables ever received a grade from a speech teacher. If they did, I’m sure that most of them would receive a high grade. After all, they are concise, memorable, and filled with vivid images. Most of us know them by heart, surely a reflection of how well they are constructed. But this one… I’m not so sure about this one. (I’m referring to Luke 18:1-8.) I’m afraid that if my preaching professor from seminary ever gave it a grade, it would receive an “F”. I say that because it breaks one of the major rules of preaching: “Never use a negative example to make a positive point.” This parable does just that.

The main character in the parable is a villain: a judge who cares nothing for anyone but himself. His only concern is his own power and prestige. So when a poor widow comes before him, he has no reason to find in her favor. She can’t give him a bribe; and showing her justice won’t do anything for him politically. So he shuffles her case into the box labeled “when I get around to it.” But that widow isn’t as powerless as she looks. She has a couple of tricks up her sleeve! She badgers that judge until he cringes at the very sight of her. She’s sitting on his doorstep when he leaves for his office in the morning, and she stands on the steps of the courthouse in the afternoon with a sign saying, “No justice here!” She posts about his lack of compassion on his Facebook page, and sends scathing replies to his Twitter account tweets. When he goes for a haircut, guess who is sitting in the waiting area ready to give him a piece of her mind while he is trapped in the barber’s chair! That widow pesters that judge every which way but loose! In the end, that judge is so sick of her that he finds in her favor just to get rid of her.

It’s a great parable! But the problem is Jesus compares this judge to God. And it’s a negative comparison. “See this judge?” Jesus says. “God isn’t like him. Now, if even a bad judge like this one gives a poor widow what she wants because she badgers him to death, don’t you think that God will give you what you ask for if you keep praying?” If I had ever tried to preach a sermon in seminary using a comparison like this, I’m quite sure that my preaching professor would have had a stroke! But you have to admit, it’s an effective strategy. We look at the judge and think, “Thank heavens that God isn’t like that! We don’t have to badger God night and day to make our needs known. God already knows what we need. We have faith that he will answer our prayers with mercy and wisdom.” And that’s a good response! I hope that every Christian can say that. But the trouble is that a response like that can lead us to be complacent in our prayers, and not pray enough. Luke tells us that Jesus told this parable to encourage his followers to pray more, not less. Even though God is not at all like this unjust judge, God still wants us to keep praying day and night. What did Paul say? “Pray constantly!” That’s the take-home message of this parable.

Now, I hardly need to encourage you folks to pray. This congregation is full of “prayer warriors” who are ready to pray for anyone who needs it at a moment’s notice. We have an active prayer chain at Nashville who does just that! But maybe what we pray for could stand some examination. We pray for people all the time. We pray for ourselves; we pray for people we love; we pray for friends, and we pray for friends of friends. But how often do we pray for the church? I mean the wider church, not just our own congregation. Do we pray for the church of Jesus Christ around the world; or do we just pray for ourselves? Today is an especially appropriate day to ask that question, since today is Reformation-Reconciliation Sunday, a day that highlights the Christian church in all its forms and denominations. Today is a day that both celebrates the particular heritage of Protestants, and also mourns the differences that keep us apart both from our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters and from each other. Today is a day that lifts up the prayer that is inscribed on the UCC seal: “That they may all be one.” We’re a long, long way from the fulfillment of that prayer, aren’t we?

Before I talk about Reformation-Reconciliation Sunday, let me remind you how the Protestant Reformation began. The Reformation was started by Roman Catholic monk Martin Luther. He objected to church practices that he considered to be both unbiblical and done solely for financial gain. And so, on October 31, 1517, Luther nailed a list of his objections to the church door in Wittenburg, Germany. Luther only wanted to debate his criticisms with church officials. But his criticism hit the church in the collection plate; and instead of debating Luther, church officials threw him out of the church. Luther and his followers became known as “Protestants” because they “protested” the actions of the Pope. They “reformed” their church to avoid the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church of their time. Reformation Sunday as we know it today was begun way back in the 1700s in Europe to celebrate the men and women who reformed – and who continue to reform – the church of Jesus Christ when it strays too far away from the gospel. In fact, the motto of the Presbyterian Church is “Reformed and always reforming.” That motto reminds us that reformation didn’t just happen 500 years ago; it is an ongoing process.

Now, reformation is a very good thing. But the Reformation led to incredible conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Believers on both sides of the fence were beheaded, drowned, or burned at the stake because of their religious beliefs. (Some churches change their altar paraments to red on this Sunday to signify both the Spirit who guides our efforts to reform, and the martyrs who died in those efforts.) We may not be burning people at the stake these days, but the gulf between Protestant and Roman Catholic is as wide as ever. In fact, many Protestant denominations have split apart themselves over different beliefs, and over how Christians should live based on those beliefs. We not only don’t worship together; in many cases, we can’t even work together for the good of the Kingdom of God. There’s something seriously wrong with this picture! And so, about 10 years ago, Reformation Sunday was renamed Reformation-Reconciliation Sunday. On the last Sunday in October, the Sunday closest to October 31, we give thanks for reformers in all ages who remind the church that following Jesus Christ is our first priority. But we also work for reconciliation among Christians whose faith practices may be different, but whose faith is based solely on the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 And that brings us back to prayer. What might happen if we prayed as hard for the health of the church as we do for our own personal health and for the health of our friends and loved ones? After all, Jesus tells us to pray constantly for what we really want. What could happen if we prayed constantly for the unity of the Church of Jesus Christ? Obviously, our prayers might cause some people in other denominations to soften up a little bit. Some of those Christians who think we UCCers are hopelessly liberal might reconsider that opinion. They might even listen to our point of view! But equally important, our prayers might change us. We might become a little more open to working with other churches on projects that are too big for us to do by ourselves. We might consider joining with a Methodist church – or even a Roman Catholic church – to work on a soup kitchen or a clothing bank. And we might even start to listen to them! So, if we decide to pray for Christian unity, we need to be serious about it. We can’t pray for unity if we secretly think that things are just fine the way they are right now. After all, if we were reunited with our brothers and sisters in Christ who are in other denominations right now, we might end up changing a few things – and that can be really frightening! After all, no denomination is perfect – not even our own beloved United Church of Christ. And maybe that’s the most important effect that prayers for Christian unity might have on all of us. As we pray, God might grace us with a little humility. We might realize that our way of doing things isn’t the only way, or even the right way – it’s just one way. There are lots ways to follow Jesus faithfully. UCCs, Presbyterians, Mennonites, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics are all faithful followers of the Lord. We all just follow a little bit differently. But not one of us is perfect.

So maybe a few prayers are in order. They might go something like this. “Lord, open my eyes so that I can see that others in your Kingdom love the Lord Jesus, too. Open my ears so that I can listen to whatever they have to say to me. Open my mouth with loving words for Christians who are different than I am in their beliefs or in their practices. Open my arms so that I can embrace them, whoever and wherever they may be. Bring down the barriers that divide us. Reform your church again as you reconcile us to one another. Amen.”

 

A Place at the Table

This past Sunday was Worldwide Communion, one of my favorite Sundays. During worship on that day, I use liturgies and hymns from around the world. My sermon on that day always emphasizes our oneness in Christ; and this one is no exception. God brings us together, but we always seem to find a way to exclude ourselves (and others) from the table.

I wish – sincerely wish – that Luke had not chosen to end this parable (Luke 14:15-24) on the note that he did. It ends on a note of exclusion, with a dinner party host declaring, “Not one of the guests who were invited will get even a taste of my banquet.” Is this what Jesus had in mind when he told this parable originally? Did he intend to warn his listeners that God will exclude some people from his Kingdom; so they had better behave themselves? I’m not so sure!

I say that because the parable – without the final line – isn’t about exclusion at all. it is, in fact, a parable of radical inclusion! The owner of a house has prepared a lavish banquet for many guests. Everything is ready. The roast beef is cooked to perfection; the lemon meringue pies are just the right combination of tart and sweet; the coffee is steaming in the carafe; and the table is resplendent with fine china and linen napkins. But when the time comes, all the guests have better things to do. One has to check out a field that he has just bought; another has to inspect a new yoke of oxen; while a third would rather spend time with his new wife than accept the honor of a dinner invitation. And so, that host commands his slaves to go out and invite all kinds of people who have no social standing at all – the poor, the blind, and the lame – so that the dinner isn’t wasted. That kind of inclusion is rarely seen, in Jesus’ day or in ours. If anyone was excluded from that marvelous banquet, it wasn’t because the host didn’t want them. It was because they excluded themselves.

We aren’t good at radical inclusion. We, like Luke, are all too willing to exclude people, especially from the Lord’s Table. We all know that some denominations officially exclude Christians from the Lord’s Table who are not members of that particular denomination. Some Christians even exclude members of their own denomination who do not believe or behave exactly as they do. There are many reasons given for this kind of exclusion.  Although they may appear to be logical, they ring hollow when we consider Jesus’ prayer in the gospel of John that asks God to unite all of us as one body. I do not believe that excluding anyone from the table is part of Jesus’ plan for humanity!

So each year on the first Sunday in October – Worldwide Communion Sunday – we all sit down together as a reminder not of how many people are excluded from Christ’s table, but how many people are included. Worldwide Communion Sunday was begun by our Presbyterian cousins almost 80 years ago, way back in the 1930s. It was originally a call to celebrate our oneness in Christ by gathering together around the banquet table that he has prepared for all of us. In the middle of a world of exclusion, it was intended to be a demonstration of God’s inclusion. Just as the banquet host invited the lame, the blind, and the poor, God calls people from around the world to join him at his feast. My goodness – he even calls us!

Worldwide Communion is a reminder that in Christ, there is truly neither Jew nor Greek, neither rich nor poor, neither male nor female. Most of us tend to think of white, middle-class Americans when we think of a “Christian.” But many – in fact, most – Christians are not white Americans. These days, most Christians globally are Hispanic or Asian! The Christian church is growing the most rapidly in the Far East. No, there are not as many Asian Christians as there are European and American Christians. But our churches are in a decline, and have been for decades. Asian churches, on the other hand, are booming – and booming in many areas where Christianity is officially illegal. We middle-class Americans are not the only ones who sit at the Table of Christ. In fact, sometimes the people who are the least like us show the love of Christ in ways that are more powerful than any sermon ever preached from a pulpit. John Buchanan, editor of the periodical The Christian Century and former pastor of Third Presbyterian Church in downtown Chicago, has recently written about an encounter like that. These are his own words from The Christian Century (October 2, 2013, p. 3).

“He was an infantryman in the British army in World War II and ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland. The conditions were dreadful. There was no heat, and prisoners were given a single bowl of thin soup and a small crust of bread daily. Men were starving, sick, filthy and desperate. Suicide was a very real option. All one had to do was run towards the perimeter of the camp and leap against the barbed wire fence. Guards would immediately shoot and kill anyone trying to escape. In the middle of the night he walked to the perimeter and sat down beside the fence to think about going through with it. He heard movement in the darkness from the other side of the fence. It was a Polish farmer. The man thrust his hand through the barbed wire and handed my friend half of a potato. In heavily accented English he said, ‘The Body of Christ.’”

Sharing the love of Christ has been described as one blind, starving beggar telling another blind, starving beggar where to find food. We are all poor, blind, and lame; and Christ welcomes us to his table. Oh, our differences continue to divide us. We are, after all, not only American, but also Arabian, Chinese, Afghani, French, Kenyan, and Colombian. We do not all practice one kind of Christianity. We are Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Egyptian Coptic, Wesleyan, Anglican, Amish, and United Church of Christ. But we are all invited to the Table by the Christ who loves us and gave himself up for us so that all of us might be one in him.

So, today, let none be excluded. Today, in the name of Christ, let this table be open to all who wish to sit around it and feast. And let us be grateful that God, our host, has invited us all.

Investments

The parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) is a difficult one to interpret. Does God want us to concentrate on making money? That appears to be its message. In my opinion, however, it is about something very different. What if we read it as a call to take a risk for the sake of the Kingdom of God? At least, that's what I assume in my sermon for today.

There is one topic that is virtually forbidden to be discussed in American Protestant churches these days. Despite that taboo, I’m going to take my life into my hands and talk about it this morning, anyway. No, I’m not going to talk about politics. I’m also not going to talk about… well… you know… that three-letter word that begins with “s” and ends with “x.” Maybe I’ll tackle it another time… but not today. No, today I’m venturing into an area that even the bravest preacher hesitates to approach. Today I’m going to be preaching about money.

Money is an intimidating topic. Many preachers steer clear of it, except for the obligatory stewardship sermon that pops up in the fall along with the annual giving campaign. Maybe that’s because what we do with our money is an intensely private matter – at least, it is in our culture. While this congregation has a tradition of giving generously, how much each person gives from one year to the next is a carefully guarded secret. Only a few people know who gives, and how much they give. I’m not one of those people; and quite frankly, I like it that way. Knowing who gives a lot – and who doesn’t give at all – has the potential to tempt me to give better pastoral care to big givers. That won’t do at all. There are good reasons to keep our financial habits private.

But money plays a big part in what Jesus had to say about the Kingdom of God. Many of the parables that he told are about money and what we should be doing with it. This morning’s parable is about money. Oh, we tend to make it easier to swallow by making it spiritual. Since a “talent” no longer refers to a unit of money, we interpret this parable to be about our natural abilities and how we use them to serve God. And that’s OK. But we mustn’t forget that this parable originally referred to what we do with cold, hard cash. So that’s how I’m going to interpret it this morning.

Let me give you a little background just to get you on board. A “talent” was an enormous amount of money in Jesus’ day. One talent was the equivalent of 15 years’ worth of pay for an unskilled laborer. Today, to someone who is paid at the poverty level of $25,000 a year for a family of four, a talent would be worth $375,000. Three talents would be worth over a million dollars; and five talents would be worth almost 2 million dollars! The total amount that the master gave to all three of his slaves to invest was nearly 3½ million dollars in today’s money. And did you notice that he didn’t give those slaves any instructions? But the slaves knew what was expected of them. In Jesus’ time, prosperous men frequently entrusted their wealth to slaves when they had to travel on business. When the master returned, the slaves were expected to have turned a profit with his money. How they did it was up to them.

So, how did the slaves in today’s parable do with all their cash? Two of them did very well, indeed. Both the slave with five talents and the slave with three doubled their master’s money! It takes quite a while to double any amount of money without taking a risk. Safe investments – the kind that don’t require much of a risk – also don’t offer much of a return. So we can assume that the two slaves who doubled their money took quite a risk. They must have invested in something that might have taken a nose dive and left them with nothing to show for their efforts.

And that’s exactly what the third slave had when the master finally returned. All he had was the original cash that his master had given him, all $375,000 of it. In our day of roller-coaster stock markets and housing bubbles, his strategy sounds very wise. He buried the money in the ground, a common way to keep money safe in Jesus’ day. Today, we might put that cash in gold, stuff it into a sock, and hide it under the mattress. You might think that the master would have been happy with the prudence of his third slave. After all, he had given that slave the least amount of money. He obviously didn’t have much faith in that slave’s ability to turn a profit. He had all of his original investment back! What was the problem?

The problem is that a no-risk strategy is also a no-gain strategy. What’s that proverb? “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Money doesn’t increase on its own. in Jesus’ day or in our own, you have to risk money to make money. The master didn’t want his money to just sit there like a golden paperweight. He wanted it to be used for something. He wanted to see a return on his investments! So he sacked that third slave, and he gave the money to the first slave who had proven himself a whiz at investing! It appears that taking a risk was exactly what the master had expected. Maybe in the Kingdom of God, the greatest risk is not to risk anything at all.

Now, we have also been entrusted with wealth. In particular, this congregation has been entrusted with wealth. We have recently received the first installment of a very generous bequest; and we anticipate receiving more when the estate clears probate. We have a very comfortable amount of money right now – and we will soon have quite a bit more. We have to decide what to do with it. Do we save it? Do we spend it? Do we do some of both? And how do we spend it? As we ponder these questions, we need to remember that this money doesn’t belong to us – it belongs to God. The money that the slaves invested wasn’t theirs. It belonged to the Master. Now God has entrusted some of his money to his servants here in Nashville UCC to make investments and to pay dividends in God’s Kingdom. How do we do that? Maybe the parable that we just heard can give us some guidance.

First of all, I don’t think that the Master has any problem at all with our saving some of this money for our future needs. Investing in God’s Kingdom doesn’t mean spending every dime without any provision for what might happen tomorrow. But I do think that the Master would have a problem of we decided to save all of it. Jesus told us what happened to the slave who hid his portion of the money in a hole in the ground! But even with some of the bequest safely stored away for a rainy day, we still have a great deal of money to invest in – what? What does God’s investment look like?

I can’t give you an iron-clad answer to that. No one can. How God is calling us to handle this bequest is different than how God might want another congregation to handle it. But I can tell you this much for sure. God is surely calling us to take a risk with at least some of this money on behalf of God’s Kingdom. God is calling us to try something new…to step away from just playing it safe… to risk a ministry to people we don’t know and maybe haven’t even met yet! Maybe it is a ministry to battered women. Maybe we could offer them a safe place in the middle of a world that has only so far shown them only violence. Or maybe we could use our Recreation Park as a playground for children who live in urban areas; and who have never seen a trail through a quiet forest, let alone walked on one. Or maybe we could start a ministry to military veterans who don’t know how to fit back into society after returning from overseas deployment. Whatever it is, it will probably turn out to be something that we haven’t even dreamed of yet! God will show us what we are being called to do – if we ask him; and if we’re ready to respond to what he tells us.

This will be a long process, friends. It will take… months. In the process, we will dream and talk and pray… and then we’ll dream and talk and pray some more. We’ll come up with some wonderful ideas – and we’ll come up with some stinkers! So, let’s work together, friends! Let’s brainstorm and talk and pray and get creative! Let’s see where God is calling us, so that at the end we will not hear, “You wicked, lazy slave!” No, indeed! At the end we want to hear God say to this congregation, “Well done, good and trustworthy slaves! Enter into the joy of your master!”

 

Weed Seeds

We all know the parable of the mustard seed and how a tiny seed grows into a huge plant. But what does it actually say about the Kingdom of God? If we take a close look at the original Greek text, it says some surprising things that don't really come through in translation. Are you a mustard seed? Maybe we all are!

Some things just can’t be described; they have to be experienced. For example, if someone asked me to describe riding a horse, I would have difficulty putting that experience into words. The best I could do would be to compare the feeling of riding to something more familiar. “Well,” I might respond, “riding a horse is like being aboard a boat. To keep your balance – on a horse or on a boat – you follow the motion with your whole body. Otherwise, you risk falling off.” Riding a horse is like being aboard a boat. I can’t describe the experience of riding; but I can compare it to something else.

Jesus told us that being a part of the Kingdom of God is something like that. Have you ever noticed that Jesus never offered a “twenty-five words or less” definition of the Kingdom? I expect that’s because defining God’s Kingdom is ultimately impossible. Like riding a horse, it can’t be described; it has to be experienced. The best that we can do is to compare it to something else. “The Kingdom of God is like…” Jesus said that over and over and over again. He told parable after parable comparing the Kingdom of God to things that were more familiar to his audience. Over the next several weeks, I’m going to preach on some of those parables. I’m going to consider what the Kingdom of God is like. Jesus told us that it’s like some very unexpected things. It’s like a dinner party that nobody attended. It’s like a woman who pestered a judge until he finally gave her what she wanted. It’s like a man who cooked the books when he was sacked from his job. But I’m going to start today with one of the most familiar parables of all. The Kingdom of God is like… a weed.

I’m referring, of course, to the parable of the mustard seed. The Kingdom of God, said Jesus, “is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” Like a mustard seed? What’s that all about? What is it about a tiny grain of mustard that makes it a good comparison for God’s Kingdom? It turns out that the original Greek text of this parable can help us to start to answer that question. The text that we read is, of course, a translation of that Greek into English. As in many cases, some of those Greek words are packed with meaning that we have to tease out like a jeweler untangling a knotted golden chain.

One of those words is the one that is frequently translated “planted” or “sowed.” In this parable, a man “planted” or “sowed” that mustard in his garden. No he didn’t – at least, not according to the Greek word that Luke uses here. The verb that Luke uses is “ebalen,” and that verb doesn’t mean “to plant.” It means “to throw,” or even “to throw out.” The image is one of a man getting rid of the day’s trash. Apple cores, potato peelings, watermelon rinds… out it all goes, together with the mustard seed that he probably never even noticed. After all, mustard seeds are one of the smallest seeds around.

And where did he throw it? Why, he threw it into his “garden,’ his “kapos.” A “kapos” isn’t a field. A “kapos” is an area that many upper-middle class people of Jesus’ time had in the courtyard of their home. Ornamental plants grew in a “kapos.” You’ve all seen pictures of Roman villas with fountains and flowers in the middle of the courtyard. Those flowers were growing in a “kapos.” But not mustard. No one would have put a mustard seed into a “kapos” on purpose! That’s because mustard is a weed. It grows quickly and soon takes over the area where it is planted. All the carefully organized flowers and ornamental plants would be crowded out if a mustard plant showed up in a “kapos”!

But there’s one more curious thing about this parable. The mature mustard plant is called a “tree,” a “dendros.” Mustard seeds don’t grow into trees. They grow into annoying bushes that you can’t get rid of easily; but never in the history of the world has any mustard seed grown into a tree! But this one did. This one grew into a tree so big that birds were able to come and make their nests in its branches.

The Kingdom of God, said Jesus, “is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw out into his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” A tiny mustard seed… thrown out with the garbage into an organized, well-manicured urban garden… growing not only into a plant, but into a tree that was so big that it became the home of the birds in the area. Hmmm…. What does that suggest about the Kingdom of God?

First of all, is it possible that many people of Jesus’ time saw God’s Kingdom as something worthless, fit only to be thrown on the trash heap with the morning garbage? That Greek word ɛβαλεν certainly suggests something like it. “This Kingdom of God,” said many people who heard Jesus’ message, “is trash. Who wants to live in a kingdom where the meek will inherit the earth and the peacemakers are blessed? I don’t want anything to do with that kind of kingdom! Give me money and power, thank you very much!” Do we still hear that today? Are there still people who discard Jesus’ message of love and compassion because it doesn’t suit their lifestyle? Well… it’s just a thought.

Second, the mustard seed that was discarded – that weed seed – quickly took over the urban garden where it was thrown. All the careful planning, all the organization, all the human thought that went into the garden – it all went out the window when the weed took over! It seems to me that the Kingdom of God does the same thing to many of our own careful plans. “My life is going to be like this,” we say. “I’m going to live there and behave like that.” But then God’s Kingdom lands right in the middle of all our plans, and takes over our lives. At least, if we’re lucky, it takes over our lives.

Finally, this mustard plant is not content to remain a bush. It insists on growing into a tree – a tree that offers shelter to all kinds of creatures. The birds of the air are the only ones that Luke mentions, but I’ll bet that chipmunks frolicked around its roots, cicadas buzzed from its leaves, and squirrels peered out from holes in its trunk. This tree offers not just shelter, but a home – a home for anyone who cares to live there. Is that the Kingdom of God for us? Is it a home where we can live safely, secure from all those who might want to harm us? This parable certainly suggests that it is.

Parables are powerful in that they don’t nail things down. Parables are open-ended. Parables suggest all kinds of interpretations! I’ve just offered three of them for this parable, but there are more. After all, the Kingdom of God is all kinds of things! “The Kingdom of God is like a weed seed that a man threw away into his well-thought out, organized garden. It grew until it took over that garden; and it offered a home to any creature who came by.”

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.