18 Pentecost, September 26, 2010

+From Wednesday’s Buffalo News: A lawyer who admitted Tuesday to stealing 2.7 million dollars from his clients in a complicated web of schemes, pleaded guilty to 33 felony counts as he admitted to fleecing 23 clients and loan agencies.

The reason? To finance an opulent mansion he was building in Orchard Park.

What would cause someone to commit such fraud? Well, perhaps DA Frank Sedita summed it up best when he said the lawyer’s motive was, “good old fashioned greed.”

Greed: an excessive desire for more.

This man’s greed caused him to a) break the law; b) take advantage of clients who, according to court records, “struggled financially as they waited for verdicts or settlements in their cases.”

Even though already wealthy, this man’s excessive desire for more caused him to lose sight of right and wrong, to disrespect his clients and to violate the trust they placed in him.

His being wealthy wasn’t what caused his problems, it was his crazy desire for more which became the problem. Because, that desire, when left unchecked, can become an obsession and obsessions distract and derail us. The distraction away from the good is what tripped him up.

And it’s this—this distraction away from the good-- which really gets Jesus’ blood boiling.

Jesus doesn’t care if we’re rich or poor, God isn’t interested in our debt to income ratio. God wants us—Jesus tells us---to take care of one another—to respect one another.

The Rich man, as we heard in Luke this morning didn’t do this. He didn’t treat Lazarus with love. He didn’t treat Lazarus with respect. I’m not even sure, in life, if the rich man ever even noticed Lazarus.

But after death? Well then the rich man noticed Lazarus—noticed him in paradise while the rich man? The rich man sat in exile, in torment, far from paradise.

Seems pretty cut and dry doesn’t it…..suffer in this life , get rewarded in the afterlife. Be rewarded in this life, suffer in the afterlife.

Seems like the rich are doomed and the poor will be exalted. But to think that is to only consider this story at face value, to assume that the primary issue is wealth, that somehow God doesn’t want us to be wealthy.

But wealth isn’t what this parable is about. This parable is about worth and how, when we find worth in things and in stuff, in power and prestige instead of finding worth and dignity in all whom we encounter-we lose our way.

The lawyer I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon appears to have lost his way. So did the rich man.

You see, somehow, when we get distracted by money, we get lost, and before we know it, we’ve cut ourselves off from God, stuck on the wrong side of the chasm, the wrong side of the divide.

How do we get so lost? Most of us here today don’t have to worry about being distracted by riches, but we have plenty of things to distract us---wanting what we want and wanting it now. Worrying about what we don’t have. We get lost when those things—the worries and the wants-- take priority in our lives.

So I don’t think this Gospel is about wealth at all. I think it’s about being aware. About seeing what’s going on around us and responding to it. When Jesus is railing against wealth he isn’t saying, being rich is bad. He’s saying, being blind to need is bad. Being deaf to need is bad.

Being unaware is what’s bad.

The Rich Man didn’t notice Lazarus until he needed something. Lazarus wasn’t another human being to the Rich Man, he was a means to an end. He was a servant. He was a slave. The Rich Man, if he ever looked at Lazarus at all, certainly didn’t see Christ in him. The Rich Man respected a lot of things—money, power and prestige but he forgot to respect the one thing we are commanded to respect: each other.

The Rich Man couldn’t , for all his riches, see what was right under his nose.

And there’s the problem.

If we don’t see what’s around us, then how will we ever find our way to God? If we’re so caught up in worries about money—---too much, not enough, whatever--if we let our concern about money or power or prestige take our focus away from seeking God in all we do, then we’re on the Rich Man side of the chasm, aren’t we? If we stay focused on the stuff of this world then we remain on the other side of the great divide, far apart, making it seem as if God is unreachable.

But God is never unreachable. God doesn’t hide from us, we hide from God. When we fail to see Christ in those around us, when we fail to offer assistance, regardless of how meager it may seem to us, we hide from God.

Now, this may not sound like a stewardship sermon, but it is. Because when we really notice one another, when we see Christ in all whom we encounter, when we, out of the love we garner from this community become strong enough to respect the dignity of every human being, no matter how challenging that may seem, we’ve hit the jackpot. Then we’re rich. And our job, once we receive such riches, is to give back.

Not because we have to, but because we want to.

So, listen carefully to our stewardship speakers, reflect on what this place has meant to you and then help us to continue this work, help us to be who you want us to be. Offer as much of yourself as you can. For in giving---of time, talent and treasure-- we bridge the gap between us and God. We bridge all divides.

In giving we arrive in the land God promised, a land flowing with hope and promise, a land where love of God and love of neighbor are embraced and lived. +

Pentecost 17, Proper 20 Yr C

+At the end of the announcements each week I say an offertory sentence, words taken directly from scripture to ready us for making and receiving offerings at the altar. We bring forward the collection plates, the bread and the wine and then we receive the gift of grace through the body and blood of Christ at the altar. I usually say “Walk in Love as Christ Loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.” There are several others, including: “If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, then come offer your gift.”

The point of this sentence is that if we’re holding a grudge, if we have unfinished business, if we haven’t forgiven a misunderstanding, a debt, or a disagreement, then we aren’t ready to make an offering to God or to receive the abundant grace of God offered to us through the Eucharist.

God wants us free and clear when we come to this altar. That’s why we do a confession of sin just before we come with the gifts. It prepares us, it wipes the slate clean---it frees us.

Today’s Gospel-- the Parable of the Dishonest Manager-- is a story about the forgiving of debts. Not just monetary debts, but all debts---all the scores we keep—who has slighted whom, who owes whom an apology…we have a laundry list of things done to us, and things we’ve done to others ---which must be cleared from our hearts and souls before we can fully receive God’s love as offered to us through the sacrament of Holy Communion.

Today’s parable has a lot of conniving, debting and dishonesty in it. And it’s easy to get lost, trying to figure out who’s the villain, and who’s the hero.

To review-- there is an absentee landlord, landowner who has a resident manager to handle the day to day affairs of his business---which includes taking advantage of the farm workers---paying them an unlivable wage, charging them huge rents and then gouging them at the company owned store….

….In summary: the landowner was cheating the peasants, the manager was cheating the landowner and the peasants by taking a little off the top for himself. When the manager is caught by the landowner the manager turns to the peasants and by cheating the landowner even more, makes the peasants happy. There’s a lot of cheating and conniving going on here.

Luke wraps up this parable talking about faithfulness, dishonest wealth and true riches.

So, once again, it sounds like Jesus is condemning wealth.

But to just assume that and move on is to miss what Luke has been saying to us all summer----that all the riches of this world will never ever take the place of the riches God bestows upon us….for the grace of God is what makes all things possible –even our wealth. And to be able to fully receive God into our hearts we must be free of resentment, free of regret, free of burden.

For Luke, forgiveness is the name of the game. Luke tells us again and again that God is always ready to forgive. Abundantly, extravagantly outlandishly. That God, regardless of what we’ve done, is completely willing---anxious, actually---to forgive us.

Now, as we heard last week, while forgiveness is always available we must ask for it, we must long for it, we must seek it…forgiveness is not some free giveaway, it’s an abundant gift given to those who are ready to receive it, who have repented, have amended their lives and want to be washed in the forgiveness of God to start their life anew. A process we go through, week in and week out as we come to this altar to be forgiven, healed, renewed…fed in the glory of God, nourished to go out and do the work we have been given to do.

But, and here is where this week’s parable becomes clearer, forgiveness is not just something we receive …it’s also something we give….Jesus makes it very very clear in the Lord’s Prayer---forgive us our trespasses, our sins, our debts as we forgive those who have trespassed—sinned—debted against us.

Jesus is telling us, with this convoluted story of landowners managers and peasants, that we must forgive others—their mistakes, their faults, their debts---in order to be forgiven ourselves.

Our forgiveness of others is to have the same character as God’s forgiveness of us---as God’s love for us: it is to be abundant, extravagant and outlandish. It must be overflowing, it must be constant. With this parable we are told that we must forgive… that only in forgiving others can we truly accept the forgiveness God has for us. The forgiveness of God is so intense, so absolute, that we have to make room for it.

To do that, we must empty ourselves---of our resentments, our anger, our bitterness, our disdain and our petty scorekeeping. We are to-- simply and completely--- forgive people. Everyone. Not just those who have, in our eyes, earned it…..but everyone.

None of us can earn forgiveness, we can only desire it…and we only desire it, we only want it, when we realize, when we admit that we’ve made a mistake.

The manager had no right to forgive half the debts of those debtors.

But neither did the landowner have the right to pay those debtors an unlivable wage.

There is no villain in this story and there’s no hero …and that’s the point.

In this parable, everyone was making mistakes….everyone needed forgiveness….

Just like real life. We all make mistakes, we all need forgiveness.

Jesus is saying, don’t wait for someone to ask for forgiveness, just grant it…For it isn’t our job to keep score, it isn’t our job to decide who gets forgiven what when and how, Our job is to free ourselves enough to receive the fullness of God’s love.

By granting forgiveness, we lighten our own load of bitterness and resentment, we free up space deep within us, space which will be filled at the altar as we present ourselves, forgiven, healed and ready to be fed by the grace and truth of God, who forgives all our debts.

Always.

+

Sept. 12, 2010

How would you feel if, because of the actions of a few, you, because you identify yourself as a Christian, were discriminated against, hated reviled and wished harm?

It would feel lousy, right?

Perhaps you would say, “hey don’t blame me for the actions of a few crazy radicals. I am a ‘real Christian’ and I follow the teachings of Jesus to the best of my ability. I believe that God is Love and that we are called to love our neighbor, regardless of who they are or what they do.”

If there is one thing the actions of Terry Jones-- that pastor in Gainesville Florida who was spearheading the Int’l Burn the Qu’ran Day—did, was offer a tangible reminder of how the millions of peace loving, devout and honorable Muslims must feel in this day and age of misunderstanding the Islamic faith. It served as a reminder of how the actions of a very few can skew the perception of a great many. You and I are no more hate-filled Qu’ran burners, than the Muslims who worship at the mosque on Amherst Street are terrorists who wish us dead.

Fear is powerful. Fear can paralyze. Fear can antagonize. Fear can intimidate, fear can incite. Fear is a complex human trait…causing both flight---getting ourselves out of harm’s way---and fight---causing us to dive right in, fighting our way free of fear, free of danger.

Think about September 11, 2001. As terror took hold in NYC, Washington DC and that field in western PA did you react in measured tones, realizing that whoever was behind the attacks needed our prayers and forgiveness?

Probably not.

Because when we are terrified, when something happens which puts everything we believe, everything we trust in, everything we hope for in peril, we lose our measured selves, we lose perspective. We quickly lose our bearings, our way and can react in a manner we would never expect….we can become reactionary and intolerant.

Hate is kept alive when we let fear rule us instead of faith. Hate is kept alive when we claim that if we don’t attack first, then we’ll be attacked. Hate is kept alive when we believe that there are unredeemable people in the world. Hate is kept alive when we think that there are sheep or coins—to use the two examples in today’s Gospel—, which aren’t worth searching for, finding and bringing into the fold.

Of course we were terrified on 9/11/2001. We should have been! That is the absolute goal of terror----to keep us so scared, so frightened, that we stay stuck in reaction, we stay mired in misperception, we stay trapped in intolerance----

But what a good portion of this nation did, what a great many of you, I’m sure, did, was stand up and shout to the world…no, we won’t be reactionary, we won’t be fear mongers, we won’t HATE. We will LOVE. We will pray. We will try very hard to love our neighbor, even the neighbor who doesn’t look and act like us. We will FORGIVE. We will believe, in our heart of hearts that the Good Shepherd searches out each of us no matter how far we have strayed, no matter how lost we have become, no matter how heinous our crimes. Because the angels in heaven rejoice each and every time the lost is found, the sinner repents and the hater becomes the lover.

Love doesn’t overtake hate through further acts of hate---like racial profiling, burning Qurans or blocking the construction of a house of worship----love overtakes hate when we repent of our own misdeeds…for in repenting for our own mistakes builds tolerance for the errors of others.

Love overtakes hate when we pray our way though our terror instead of yelling our way through it.

Love overtakes hate when we remember that everyone, no matter how lost they are, is sought after by God--even misguided Pastors in Gainesville Florida and extremists who have done us great harm. Because we are all beloved daughters and sons of God and when any one of us repents and returns to the fold, there is great rejoicing in heaven.

So, as we remember the lives lost on 9/11 and the thousands of lives lost in the ensuing conflicts, when we hear about Qu’ran burning and protests against the construction of a mosque for the faithful Muslims of lower Manhattan, when fear grips our own hearts and hate seems so much easier than love, we must open ourselves to the power of grace, a grace which is freely bestowed upon all who seek it…not because we are better than anyone else, but because we all, at one time or another, will find ourselves lost and we all--- daughters and sons of the Torah, the Bible and the Qu’ran—are worthy of being found.

Amen.

Sept. 5 2010: Labor on, For the Glory of God Pentecost 15 Yr C

+I love Labor Day weekend. Not because it’s a weekend of cookouts and relaxing. Not because it’s the last hurrah before the routine of the September through June world takes root. No I love Labor Day because we sing one of my favorite hymns: “Come Labor On,” #541 in our hymnal. I love that the words of this hymn reflect God’s sanctifying of our daily work, our labor.

Our work, what we do to earn a living, to put food on the table, occupies a huge portion of our life, yet many of us don’t connect what we do 9-5, M-F with what we do here on Sunday morning from 8 until 9 [10:30-11:30].

This hymn states that God has given us the ability and the expectation that we will work, that we will labor. This hymn tells us that there is work to do and that, when we work hard with dignity and integrity, God is pleased.

Pleased with our efforts, please with our work. All our work. Not just work we do specifically “for the church.” God sanctifies all human labor. This hymn acknowledges that work is part of the human condition and that God notices.

Of course, we all want to be acknowledged for the work we do, to be told that what we’ve labored at all day, all week, all career, is worthwhile and appreciated. But it usually isn’t God we turn toward for that praise.

You see, when we’re focused on being acknowledged by our bosses, by the folks who sign our checks, by our friends and family; we forget that the acknowledgement that really matters, the honor that really counts, is that which we get from God.

And, remembering God in all we do is the message in today’s Gospel.

When Jesus tells us to hate mother, father, sister, brother he means, don’t lose our primary focus— remember God in all we do, not just in times of trouble, not just in times of joy-- but always and everywhere.

He knows how easy it is to get caught up in the here and now, to pay attention to the loudest voices around us, the voices of judgment and expectation put forth by our co workers, our bosses, our friends and our family.

Jesus is reminding us that what we do---that everything we do—is because of and for God.

As stated in the Book of Jeremiah, God, the great potter, has molded us from non-distinct balls of clay into the wonderful vessels we are today, complete with the unique attributes which make you, you and me, me. Each of us fulfills a different purpose within creation. This brings to mind another old hymn—I Sing a Song of the Saints of God. A hymn which details how all of us are saints in the eyes of God, no matter what we do. We can be teachers or doctors, shepherds or queens, soldiers or priests, or even slain by a fierce wild beast…..but the point is we all have specific gifts bestowed upon us by our creator and our job is to go out into the world utilizing these gifts, as best we can, in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in.

Every job, even the wonderful job of being your rector, of being a priest, has drudgery attached to it, There are things I need to do on a daily basis which don’t feel, at first blush, to be furthering God’s kingdom. I bet your jobs feel the same way. But, and here is the point, when we are working at our daily tasks, no matter how mundane, we are living into the life God created for us.

We are God’s creation and all we do is of God.

When we get so caught up in just “getting through the day,” when our daily tasks become a burden, when we work simply to get to the end of the day, when we forget to see God at work even in the most tedious of tasks, we are turning our back on God.

Jesus is saying, “don’t let anything stand in the way of your love of God. ….it doesn’t matter if you can’t see the glory in what you do every day. . .because God sees it, and God has sanctified it.”

The regular-ness of our daily lives, our jobs as clerks, managers, accountants, teachers, construction workers, bankers, homemakers and volunteers… is where we live out the fullness of our faith.

The regular-ness of our daily lives—our Monday through Saturday lives, is more sacred than our Sunday morning lives. For it is in our daily lives that others are able to see God’s grace –a grace we gather each week here to celebrate and honor---at work in our lives.

What we have to do, what our task is as put forth by Jesus, is to do our very best to seek and serve Christ in all people—even when our bosses, our co-workers, our classmates, all our companions along the way ----drive us nuts, make us mad, hurt our feelings and exasperate us.

That’s when we’re carrying the cross of Christ. Carrying our cross and following Jesus is not proselytizing it’s not preaching…it’s living our regular, ordinary day in and day out lives.

If we live our lives doing the best we can, seeking and serving Christ in all people---even in those people who drive us nuts---then we’re carrying the cross of Christ, we’re ---evangelizing. Because, by being who God molded us to be, we show others that God loves us all and sanctifies all that we do.

So go out from here today, resuming the routine of a September to June world, knowing that God is with you in all you do, loving you for who you are and what you do, so that no matter what heartache befalls us, no matter what frustrations we feel at home, at work or at school, we are the beloved masterpiece of our potter God, a God who formed us to be exactly who we are.

So go, Labor on. Your work is beautiful in God’s sight. +