Advent 2A Dec. 8, 2019 Stump or Shoot, God is Coming for Us! Alleluia.

+There are so many surprising images in today’s readings:

¬ Wolves and lambs lounging in a peaceful co-existence, leopards and lions playing, a baby crawling safely within the reach of the snake.

¬ Gentiles being welcomed into Judaism through the cleansing act of baptism—no 30 foot walls being erected to keep the Palestinians out of Israel back then-- the images of peaceful co-existence are almost unbelievable!

¬ And then we have wild and woolly John the Baptist flying INTO A RAGE at the Pharisees who’ve come to gawk at his somewhat bizarre presentation. There he is, all smelly and wrapped in camel hair, blasting his message to all within ear shot, a touch of crazed ramblings infused with a wisdom that cannot be denied.

¬ And one of my favorite images of all—that earnest little seedling shooting up from a stump: a branch from the tree of Jesse.

The family tree that was the House of David, looked mighty bleak when Isaiah was writing in the 8th c. BCE—it was a mere stump of its former glory---the House of David was under attack by the Assyrians, they were surrounded, defeat at every turn. 

Hard to be hopeful in such a situation...who can imagine anything growing while sitting on the stump of utter despair?

 I’ve sat there myself, perhaps you have, too. You may be there now -- at that place where hope is cut off, where loss and sadness have deadened your heart. A place where peace seems out of reach and happiness, the thing of fantasy.

  The good news is that God’s Advent word has come to sit on that stump, alongside us, right where we are. You see the promise of God doesn’t  come in a blaze of glory, it’s not delivered on a chariot of fire..no ,it comes to us exactly where we are and it comes to us just how we are...happy and hopeful, sad and despairing, raging and ranting. It doesn’t matter—God meets us right where we are.

Our message from Isaiah is filled with hopeful words creating a vision that’s surprising in its simplicity and honesty. Nothing hyperbolic and lofty here. God’s promise is matter-of-fact and brutally honest--the nation as they knew it would never rise again. The shoot would not become a mighty cedar... instead the shoot would become something altogether surprising, altogether different than anything anyone could ever expect. It won’t look mighty, it won’t be fierce… it will be a BABY born to peasants, IN A BARN among the cattle and the sheep and the donkeys. 

There is nothing overtly mighty in that scene at all... yet... in that barn , among those critters, God will come. And none of us will ever be the same again. 

   Yes, a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse… fragile, yet tenacious and stubborn. It will grow like a plant out of dry ground. And it will be strong and miraculous enough to push back the stone from a rock-hard tomb.

The shoot will grow in the heart of those cut off by unbearable sorrow until one morning they can look up again. It will grow in the hearts of people told over and over that they are nothing, they are nobody.

In the depths of that sorrow, in the grip of that hate, the plant will grow. It will break through the places where darkness dwells, where hope loses its way, where loneliness spreads. The shoot will grow to sing shouts of Hosanna and Glory to God in the highest.

   My friends, this shoot emerging from the stump of Jesse—this fragile sign--- is the beginning of God’s incarnation—of God’s coming to us, as one of us!

Now, what about the seedling longing to burst forth in our own hearts? Deep in that place where faith longs to break through the hardness of our own disbelief, the frozen ground of our own fear, the rock hard stone of our own despair?  Folks, don’t wait for the tree to be full grown. Search for that sprout, encourage that shoot, welcome the God who comes to us in Advent; inviting us to move beyond all that was into all that will be.

We may still want to sit on the stump for a while and brood—that’s ok--God will sit with us. But God will also keep nudging us, saying: “Look! Look -- there on the stump. Do you see that green shoot growing?”

“O come, green shoot of Jesse, free

Your people from despair and apathy;

Forge justice for the poor and the meek,

Grant safety for the young ones and the weak.

Rejoice, rejoice! Take heart and do not fear,

God’s chosen one, Immanuel, draws near.”

My friends, a miracle is sprouting, the wonder of God is approaching, the Prince of Peace indeed is drawing near. Be alert, be prepared and be ready to shout with the angels and the shepherds, 

“Glory to God in the highest heaven and peace to God’s beloved people on earth! “

Amen!

https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1940

Proper 27C We are All in God's Grip

+In this morning’s Gospel we have a little change of pace as the Pharisees give way to the Sadducees for the latest episode of “trick the Son of God.”
If a man dies and his brother marries the widow and then he dies and another brother marries the widow, ….to whom does she belong in eternal life? [ now here’s a little detour into why marriage was so important—— a widow had no standing in Jesus’ time. An unattached woman was looked on with an air of judgement. A woman should not, in Jesus’ time, be unattached. A woman needed a man to make her legitimate.]
    It’s easy to skip over the specifics of this question by saying this Gospel is not about marriage but rather the resurrection—and indeed it is about the resurrection—-but it’s also about marriage, about belonging, about attachment, about connection, about whose we are, in this life and in the next.
    I have to admit, this reading struck a chord with me this time around….for I myself was widowed two years ago yesterday—-previously I read this gospel with nary a thought of how it sounded to those among us who’ve been married, widowed and for some, remarried. But this year, this time, think about it I did.
    One day I woke up and I was here and so was my spouse. Later that morning, in one fell swoop of a heart stopped by the ravages of chemotherapy  I was still here, but my wife? She was not. I was in this life and she was in life eternal.
   The resulting chasm felt wide and impassable. The separation, intensely painful. The loss, acute. And yet, as a firm believer in the resurrection, in a proclaimer of life everlasting, a lover of God and of God’s most holy mysteries I knew, I know, that for Pete life had simply changed, not ended and that for me? Life had also changed, not ended.
That’s the gift of faith in the resurrection—-we know that this life—this here and now is not the be all and end all. It is a moment in a much greater and never ending whole that is Life Everlasting.
    But when it happens, when the love of your life is no longer by your side, that faith, that belief, that hope is challenged. Because all I could feel, all I knew in those first days and those first months and still at times to this day is the reality that she is not here. She is there. And I?  I am here. It seems very black and white.
    It’s this kind of thinking that the Sadducees were engaged in. In modern day language this is called “binary” thinking—-meaning there is yes and no, there is black and white, there is here and there, there is life and death. This binary thinking is something we humans have constructed —it is not, according to Jesus, how God thinks. For in God there is no time, there is no here or there, in God there is simply now. “Now" is all that has been. “Now” is all that is. “Now” is all that ever will be.
    It’s a bit mind-blowing…which is why we humans constructed linear time and finite thought. It’s just easier!
    After being widowed I was rudderless. I went from being married to being parted by death. No longer married. Who was I as a widow? How was I to live as a single person again? I was lost.
    But then, as anyone who has lost someone very close to them can relate, I (slowly) began to find my footing, to move through life to live the “rest of my story,” to live the fullness of what is our story.
 For while my attachment through love and commitment was strong and life-giving and a dream come true, the attachment I had to my spouse, the grip of love we felt for each other was not the whole story.
The love we have for others, for our parents, our spouses, our children, our siblings, our families, our friends, our neighbors….the love we share with them, the grip of that love, isn’t the whole story….the whole story, the source of love from which all these other loves pours? It’s God.
    God is love. And out of that Love all of us…everything that ever has been and ever will be…..has been created. Any love that we feel, any love that we are blessed enough to receive, all that love comes from the source of all Love: God.
     To me, this is the point of today’s Gospel——we belong to God——we did before, we do now, we will always. In the fullness of life eternal it isn’t about to whom we are attached, it is about how we’re all attached, all connected through the source of all love, the source of all joy, the source of all light: God.
    In death we are reunited with those who have gone before and we rejoice at the heavenly banquet loosening our grip on our earthly attachments—-not because they weren’t/aren’t precious to us, but because once we enter into the fullness of resurrected life we, amidst the choirs of angels and the great cloud of witnesses, realize that all our attachments, all our loves gain their meaning through the one attachment that feeds us all: the love of  God given to us through Jesus Christ.
As the old hymn puts it:
“In Christ there is no east or west, In him no south or north, But one great family bound by love…"
To whom do we and our beloved to belong when our earthly sojourn is over? We belong to the Love that created us, the Love that Redeems us and the Love that always and forever Sustains us.  And for that we all can say, Amen.

If we aren’t all in this together, we aren’t in it at all. Proper 25C

+Joann and I had a seminary professor who,after a particularly challenging piece of scripture was read, often said: “This reading convicts me.” It was a curious turn of phrase and I always wondered what he really meant by it. But this morning? This morning I know exactly what he meant... for this morning the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector  convicts me. It convicts me because  just like the Pharisee, I have prayed the prayer of “Thank God it’s them and not me.” It convicts me because of how many times I’ve  encountered someone and instead of responding in love, I’ve responded in fear.. Someone who’s mentally ill or intoxicated or in some sort of distress.  How many times have I avoided these people and rationalized my actions by thinking, “well I give money to charities that care for people like them, I’m a good person——haven’t  I done enough?” Truth be told, while I feel ashamed about this behavior, I can easily cover it with false righteousness.
It convicts me because I’m reminded that my actions are not that of a humble, God loving, God trusting person, but rather the actions of an uptight, rigid, going to always play by the rules of society—ignoring the cost-- person.
This reading convicts me because it makes me way too much like the Pharisee and not nearly enough like the tax collector.
Did you notice how the Pharisee isn’t so much praying to God as he is lecturing? But in his efforts to point out how different---how much better—he is than the tax collector he forgets (or more likely he never knew) that it isn’t an either or proposition. He forgets that we are indeed our brother’s and sister’s keeper. If one of us has fallen, we’ve all fallen. If one of us is hungry, we’re all hungry, if one of us is abused, we’re all abused. If one of us is lost than none of us is truly found. He forgets that the way of Jesus is not the way of us against them it’s the way of and for us all.
If we aren’t all in this together, we aren’t in it at all.
        At first glance, the Pharisee seems to be the insider in this story, the tax collector the outcast. But alas, in the world of Jesus, it’s the Pharisee who is on the outside, it’s the Pharisee who’s lost, it’s the Pharisee who needs redemption.
Now that’s not to say that the tax collector is Mr. Good Neighbor. Remember, he’s an agent for the occupying force of the day, the Roman Empire. He’s no prize.
Yet he, at the end of parable, goes away justified: forgiven, healed and renewed. The pharisee, on the other hand…well he has some lessons to. learn…
He needs to learn about community.
He needs to learn that the temple he worked so diligently to protect by following every single rule of who was allowed in and who should be kept out amounted to nothing without love of neighbor.
Without its community.
Any community of faith more concerned with who is in and who is out misses the entire point.
All that we are and all that we have is through God’s abundant and indescribable mercy and grace.
The tax collector “got it.” The Pharisee did not.
We’re all in this together. If the tax collector is standing outside the temple gates while we’re safely ensconced inside, then our work isn’t finished.
Until every single person who wants to be in the loving embrace of God is safely in that embrace, than none of us are.
We’re all in this together.
If our sister or brother is ill, outcast, lost or lonely than we are.
We’re all in this together.
And when I say all, I mean all:
Everyone.Those who we like and those who we don’t, Those who worship like us and those who don’t. Those who love like we do, and those who don’t. Those who vote like us and those who don’t. Those with whom we are comfortable and those with whom we are not.
Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves means if our neighbor isn’t ok, then we aren’t ok.
 It’s all about community...and to be a true beloved community of God we must, as we prayed in this morning’s collect, exercise the gifts of faith, hope, and charity.
Faith in a God who loves everyone everywhere, always and forever.
Hope in a world that will look more and more like God’s dream for it rather than the nightmare it so often appears to be.
And charity for those who are not as fortunate as we are.
For when we act for all instead of for only us, we are exalted,  justified, and saved.
 Not for who we are or who we aren’t, but for what we do and for whom we do it.
May we all be convicted enough by this morning’s reading to leave here prepared to share all that we have with all whom we encounter, each and every day.
For if we aren’t all in this together, we aren’t in it at all.
Amen.

Recognizing the God who is Written on our Hearts,—Proper 24 Yr C

+I’m a big fan of the author JD Salinger—-in his novel Franny and Zooey, college student Franny has decided to follow St Paul’s instruction to “pray without ceasing.” Unfortunately, Franny takes this practice on without guidance or support and her efforts soon lead to a mental breakdown and as the book begins she’s left college, and gone home to recover. After significant back and forth conversation, Zooey, Franny’s brother exclaims, “we don’t need gimmicks to attract God, we’re all carrying God deep with in us where we’re just too stubborn or too distracted, to look.” 

God is deep within us. Deep. Within. Us.  

And by practicing our faith—- by literally ingesting it through the sacred act of Holy Eucharist—-we join forces with God, living this faith out, fulfilling the dream God has always held for us. 

We are to ingest faith—as so beautifully played out in the Holy Eucharist--to have it become completely in us and of us. 

It really is a give and take proposition, God’s in us and we’re in God. And together we join in the most holy of all dances. 

But, because we are who we are, we spend a whole lot of time looking for God, out here when, as Zooey tells Franny, God is already in here. Totally, completely, always.

      This has been God’s promise to us for all time. In today’s reading from Jeremiah---Gos says, “I will be their God and they will be my people. I will write the law on their hearts.” Can’t get much clearer than that. God wants us so much that God has been written on our hearts---suggesting that, if we really listen to our heart’s desire, if we pay attention to what’s deep within us, we’ll find God. Because God is in us and we are in God.

Just like Zooey says.

Franny’s efforts to get closer to God aren’t wrong---praying without ceasing is bound to increase our awareness of the God within us---but it doesn’t bring God any closer, because God is already close.

 It’s funny, we spend a lot of time and effort trying to get closer to God, assuming that God is some elusive force outside of us when God is already within us,  just waiting for us to notice.

       In the parable of the persistent widow, a widow ---remember in Jesus’ time there was no lower socio economic status than that of a widow-----is seeking justice against an unnamed adversary. Justice, in this case, can only be granted by the local judge--who was, by all accounts, an unpleasant man who had no fear or love of God and no respect or love of people. A scoundrel of a sort, but the local magistrate nonetheless. The widow had no choice but to pursue justice through him. And so she does.....never quitting, never wavering, never shrinking away. 

The point Jesus makes is this: if such a jerk like the judge would listen to the persistent pleadings of the widow-- one of the most dismissed and ignored members of society in Jesus’ day—then imagine how, if we are as persistent in our own pleadings as she, a just and loving God will respond to us.

It’s easy to consider us the widow and God the judge, isn’t it?

 But, here’s the thing...are we always the widow in this story? Is God always the judge?

 I don’t think so.

Sometimes we’re the widow: fervently, and persistently seeking God. But then there are other times—probably more than I care to admit—-when we’re the unjust judge, and God is the widow. Times when we ignore the tenacious pleadings of a loving God who just wants to be noticed. A God who wants to be found. A God who wants to be heard.

Jesus sums it up at the end of Gospel when he asks---“when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”---will he find us engaged in a dance with God?

Will he find us seeking God as eagerly as God seeks us?

This is what Franny was trying to do with her attempts at unceasing prayer. She thinks if she continually prays, God will appear from some far away place.

But what Franny forgot, what we all forget , is that God doesn’t need to be coaxed out of hiding—for God is hiding in plain sight, waiting for us. Longing for us to seek out the divine as earnestly and as urgently as the widow seeks out the judge because then—when we have sought God out so fervently, so tenaciously so deliberately and so persistently---we will discover the secret Zooey knows: that God is deep within us, residing on our very hearts where we have been  a little too stubborn, a little too timid, and a  little too dense to look.

My friends, in this day and age, when so many people are feeling lost, when so much of the world seems to have gone mad, may we all look deep within us and find the God who is waiting for us, longing for us, hiding in plain sight. 

Amen.

23C His is a song of the saved, not simply a refrain of the healed.

+Nine were healed. One was saved. To me, that’s the down ‘n dirty take away from today’s Gospel about the healing of the ten people with leprosy.
An important thing to consider in the gospels is context and in today’s reading, Luke is clear about the context of just where this story takes place. Jesus and his friends were in a cultural no man’s land---they weren’t in Galilee where they “belonged,” and they weren’t in Samaria where they most certainly DID Not.  They were in a border region. The Greek word translated here actually means “the middle region” They were traveling in the middle area between Samaria and Galilee. They were neither here nor there. They were betwixt and between.
They were, in effect, no where that mattered….
And here they are approached. Accosted, pursued, sought out by a group of ten people, ten people who found one another after being cast out from their families, their homes, their villages.  Pushed out, denied, forgotten, shunned. They were united through their exclusion.
They were no longer anyone. And they were wandering in an area best described as no where.
Jesus is where we usually find Him —on the border between clean and unclean, safe and unsafe, ok and not ok.
Luke gives us these details for a reason. He’s making sure we know that this story of healing didn’t take place in the temple. It took place out there, beyond the border of the safe, beyond the border of the comfortable. That’s important….being out there, is what Luke is trying to get across.
     Now, let’s look at the actual healing part of this Gospel. It’s an interesting course of events—the ten had heard about this itinerant preacher and healer and what in the world did they have to lose by trying to get his help? NOTHING. So they holler at him as he approaches the nearby village. This isn’t a quiet meet and greet on the road into town. This is a bit of a dust up.
     I have an image of Jesus and his friends approaching the village and upon hearing the shouts of the ten, Jesus looking over his shoulder and saying, in what I hear as a somewhat dismissive tone: All right, GO, get out of here, show yourselves to the priests. As if to imply, “fine, I’ll take care of you, now get out of my way, I’ve got other things to do.”
 Lots of commentators keep Jesus really squeaky clean during these stories. That just doesn’t jibe with who I think Jesus of Nazareth was—he hung out in notoriously bad places with people of questionable character---he was a rabble rouser, an instigator and a pain in the patoot to a whole host of people. He was sweaty and smelly and dirty. He could be rude and outlandish. He could be cranky and annoying. After all, he was HUMAN.  He had good days and bad. So what makes us think that he kindly and gently said, in an angelic voice, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” Perhaps he was brusque. Perhaps he was annoyed and ticked off and said   “Go show yourselves to the priests” [say with annoyance] and then went on his way.
I imagine the scene playing out like that rather than a holier than thou preacher gently and lovingly giving them direction.
BUT —-and here’s the kicker—even when annoyed and rushed and hot and bothered, Jesus can’t help but feel compassion. He can’t help but HEAL them, even if he doesn’t take the time to stop and speak with them. He can’t help, amidst all the human-ness of his being, to also be Divine. That’s the beauty of our Savior. For he at all times and in all places, is BOTH.
    And so, he gives his directive and the ten head toward the synagogue to see the priests. (No doubt hoping that this Jesus knew what he was talking about.) And as they turn to head to the synagogue they’re miraculously, thoroughly and utterly healed... It’s a miracle, they have been healed.
Noticing this barely slows nine of them down. Who can blame them? They’re anxious to do exactly what they’ve been told---after all if that crazy preacher could heal them with just a word, he could also un-heal them if they don’t follow his instructions.  They’re not the bad guys in this story—they did as they were told.
But then there’s the one….a Samaritan nonetheless… a foreigner to beat all foreigners-- a hated outsider who stops, and turns goes to Jesus, falling at his feet and praising God for this gift of health.
This isn’t just a simple thank you. It isn’t just rejoicing at being relieved of a particular ailment. No this one man, upon receiving the gift of healing, turned his whole life, his whole mind, his whole heart and his whole soul over to God. His behavior is a shout of “Hosanna in the Highest, you are my God and I am your child.”
His is a song of the saved, not simply a refrain of the healed.
Have we been healed, or have we been saved?
To be healed is a wondrous thing, worthy of our gratitude.
But to be saved is to go out into the world, seeking and serving Christ in all whom we encounter. No exceptions, no yes buts, no I can’t. It’s the challenge presented to us by Jesus in today’s parable---be grateful for our healing, AND be energized, renewed and inspired by our salvation.
Go out into the world, make a difference. Stand up and stand out as one who is Healed and Saved. For that’s what we are called to do and to be. Thanks be to God.

Proper 21c The Rich Man Has No Voice

+How do you like that Gospel—-Heaven, Hell, awesome comfort, eternal torment. Real uplifting. When I heard this gospel 50 years ago—when I was 8—-it figged me. The God I had learned about in Sunday did not banish us to hellfire and damnation. I knew that.. so conjured my own view of Hell. My grandmother was dumbfounded when I told her that Hell—Hades--was seeing everything happening in the world—-like the people in heaven did—-but being unable to do anything about it.
Just like the rich man in this morning's Gospel.
All the rich man wanted to do was warn his brothers not to place material wealth and status above God and love of neighbor. He wanted them to listen, to hear, to open their ears, their eyes and their hearts to love. Abraham reminds the Rich Man—-they have to learn this themselves. We all have to learn this lesson ourselves and then, as we learn it here on earth, we must live it in all we do so that we can spread it.This is the key of establishing God’s kingdom here on earth—by spreading love —for until all feel the love, none of us will feel it.
Abraham is telling the Rich Man this.But, even while in the torment of knowing the errors of his ways, he still cannot hear what it’s being said.
Can we? Will we?

Luke talks a lot about wealth. Not because Luke thought wealth was bad, but because Luke thought hoarded wealth was bad.

A couple of weeks ago it was the Rich fool and his barns, then the shepherd who leaves 99 assets behind to seek out one wandering sheep and the woman who, upon losing one of ten coins, throws a party spending the other nine when the tenth is found.

And then last week, the parable of the shrewd manager who cuts the debts of debtors so they will end up being indebted to him.

Now it’s easy to say that the Jesus portrayed in Luke’s Gospel doesn’t care much for the wealthy, preferring instead to spend his time with the poor and destitute—but what we’ve read these past weeks are parables and there’s always more to a parable than meets the eye…

At first glance in today’s gospel we have The Rich Man—-an uber consumer and hoarder of wealth—- hindered by his lack of awareness while on earth,  and now, in eternal life, tormented that his brothers cannot hear his shouts of warning from the grave.

The Rich Man has no voice.
He is not heard.

Is there anything worse than not being heard?

Of having something to say, and to have no one--- hear you?
No one to listen, no one to consider your point of view?

Several years ago I received a phone call from a woman requesting food from the Good Shepherd food pantry. Because the Food Bank has very clear rules for food distribution (to make sure all geographic regions of WNY have equal access to food)  I told her that her zip code didn’t fall within our catchment area.  The defeat in her voice was palpable. She didn't know what else to do, where else to turn. I assured her there was a solution and took a few minutes to match her zip code with a food pantry. She was very grateful and said something striking...so striking it has stayed with me these years.

“thanks for taking my call, pastor.” “Thanks for listening.”

Think about it---I wasn’t able to give her food from the pantry, I didn't even guarantee that she would get food. I simply took 3 minutes out of my day to point her in the right direction. Yet she was so grateful. Grateful that I took her call, that I listened to her, because when you’re in a position of needing to access food pantries, you’re rarely heard.

Poor people, to a good portion of our world, simply don't matter.

And that’s the lesson I glean from our stories about wealth this past month. The poor, the needy, the lonely, the lost, the elderly, the injured....they aren't heard, they aren't noticed, they don't matter....unless someone with more standing, someone with more wealth, someone with MORE reaches out to them, searches for them, listens to them and makes sure they are reached, touched, found and heard.
And this reaching, this listening, this noticing? It's up to US. Not congress, not the wealthy, not the famous and filthy rich. Nope. US.
We have a choice: we can be the hoarding farmer longing to build more barns or we can be the searcher of the lost coin. We can be the rich man paying no heed to Lazarus or we can be the shepherd seeking the one out of 99.

We can open our eyes, our ears and our hearts or we can close ourselves off, build a wall and stay firmly on the side of the haves while the Lazaruses of the world remain the have nots, the heard nots, the matter nots.

Our challenge isn’t to beat ourselves up for having stuff, it’s to bridge the gap between those who have and those who don’t. It’s our Christian duty, it’s the longing of Christ that we hear the cries of those without voice.
As I consider Jesus’ messages to us these past few weeks one thing seems crystal clear:
Money is not a bad thing, letting money blind us to the needs of others is.
Money isn’t a bad thing. Letting money separate us from our neighbor and our God, is.

My friends, whatever we trust more than God separates us from God.
It creates a chasm as wide as that between the Rich Man and Lazarus.
A gap seemingly too wide to ever bridge.
But when we lead with God, when we trust in God and when we love our neighbor by seeing her, hearing her and respecting her, that gap will be closed, that  chasm will be bridged and the love of God, spread.
And that, my friends, is the whole point.
Amen.

Until all are at the table none of us can eat. Proper 17c St Mark's Erie

In the 1960’s and early 1970’s back in my hometown of suburban Chicago, teenagers attended a group called Fortnightly. Oh how I remember watching my sisters get ready. They put on party dresses, donned gloves—not the ones used for warmth but the one’s used as a fashion accessory—-and headed to the community center to learn how to behave in a social setting. the girls learned how to be the perfect dinner companion, the boys learned how to be the perfect escort. I watched my sisters head to fortnightly with a combination of envy and confusion. Fortnightly was a rite of passage, it meant you were a big girl and I certainly wanted to be a big girl, but I was also filled with questions—-how is learning to be “better” than others in a social setting a good thing? How did Fortnightly pair with Sunday school? The lessons were conflicting….on the one hand, we have to make the table bigger so everyone can have a seat of honor and on the other, keeping your lipstick tidy while eating a four course meal will make you a better person.... it all messed with my six year old brain.
No doubt when my parents arrived at the Heavenly banquet they found out there was no dress code…..

Today’s readings seem pretty clear to me:
It isn’t about our social status, it’s about our compassion. Our humility. Our kindness.
It isn’t about our exaltation, it’s about God’s.

It’s easy to hear today’s gospel reading and think—-oh how nice, Jesus is telling the snobby Fortnightly people of 1st century Palestine to open their banquet to all, not just the kids who can afford the dresses, the suits, the gloves and the party shoes, but to everyone, including and especially, the poor, the crippled, the lost, the lonely, the immigrant, the refugee, the despised,  and the hungry.
It’s easy to say, “of course, we do— we love Jesus, we’re nice, we’re compassionate.

And we are. We mean well. We know we shouldn’t exclude, but include. We know we shouldn’t hoard, but share.
We know that by welcoming the stranger many have entertained angels without knowing it. But……
Belief, creeds, and pronouncements ——are not the same thing as action. And what Jesus is challenging us with, what the author of the Letter to the Hebrews is reminding us, what Sirach is telling us is this:
The kingdom of God doesn’t mess around with status.
The kingdom of God doesn’t tolerate shame.
The kingdom of God doesn’t play with this “haves and have nots” business.
The kingdom of God is about dignity
It is about equity
It is about justice
It is about love.

And the things which make the Kingdom of God hum? The things that please God?
These are the things we’re to be doing.
It is how we’re to live. It is what we’re to practice.
In all things and at all times.

My friends, we are the Body of Christ existing within God’s kingdom here on earth. To make the kingdom a reality for all is our job. Our sacred duty, our holy task.

And that job, these tasks, our duty isn’t fulfilled by jockeying for position at the head of the line or the top of the pecking order or the fulfillment of a Fortnightly course.

No, that job, these tasks, this duty is fulfilled when we treat all those whom we encounter just as we ourselves are treated by God. With love. With dignity. With respect.

I am convinced, thoroughly and utterly convinced, that we can change our world, this world, this country, this region, this city of Erie—-we can transform it from the nightmare that it often is into the dream God holds for it— one act of respect and justice and humility and kindness at a time. I am sure that by engaging in consistent acts of kindness we will unleash a revolution of love, a revolution needed to get this world back on track, to make the Kingdom of God a full out reality in our midst.
We don’t do this by being better than everyone else, by beating them to the head of the line. We do it by helping them reach the head of the line.
 Because, until all are at the table none of us can eat.
Whether it’s holding the door open for someone, whether it’s paying for the person behind you in line at the drive-thru. Whether it’s going to the school where you’ve donated backpacks or school supplies and saying, “hey, how can I help?” Or whether it is taking the check you write each month to the food pantry or the domestic violence shelter or the refugee resettlement program and saying to them, “show me the people who need this help” and then engage them in conversation —look them in the eye, shake their hand, offer them a smile.
However we do it, it’s time for us to walk this walk and to show all those who we encounter that we aren’t whole until they are.

The kingdom of God is not built on good intentions alone, the kingdom of God needs our action as well.
So go out into the world and bring everyone into the fold, for in the Kingdom of God there is no admission fee, there is no earning your place. In the kingdom of God there is only the welcome of all to all.
Amen.