Gospel text for Sunday 15 October 2017

Matthew 22:1-14        Once more Jesus spoke to the people in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.

Reflection      

This, I believe, marks a pivotal moment in our religious tradition and the evolution of human consciousness. Until this moment only people identified as the descendants of Israel were invited to the wedding banquet, to be in intimate relationship with God. They were the in group, the chosen ones. Being a tribe, their primary concern was belonging. In order to belong  individuals conform their thinking, values and behavior to a group with whom they share kinship, racial, cultural, behavioral or religious traditions. Tribes nurture an “us versus  them” state of consciousness  that fosters tribal or ethnic identity. We experience tribal identity today when individuals define themselves in terms of distinctive social, political, religious, racial or sexual affiliations; the 1%, the 99, the left behind, racists, sexists, agists, republicans, democrats, conservatives, progressives, foreigners, patriots … any group identity.

But Jesus has the king invite everyone to the banquet without regard to tribe or ethnic affiliation. With the sword of his tongue Jesus slashes the historical norm of tribal or racial purity.  From this moment on all people are invited to participate in the kingdom of heaven on earth. 

Jesus is crystal clear. The evolution from tribal consciousness to an inclusive world centric perspective is not a move from law and order to anarchy, from absolute truth to the absence of truth. All that was right and good and true in the tribal traditions is carried forward in the evolution of human consciousness. This is why the king calls the guest friend when he asks, “‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’  Everyone is a friend of the kingdom of heaven AND there is an expectation that they be prepared to live in committed relationship with God, to wear the wedding robe. 

What does it mean to wear the wedding robe?  I believe it means to commit our lives to the Greatest Commandment as proclaimed by Jesus just two paragraphs following todays gospel text. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matt 22.37-39)

Love is the common ground, the great equalizer that transcends and includes every tribe, people and nation. Love moves us from tribal to world centric consciousness, and leaves no one behind. When we accept the invitation to the wedding banquet we must be prepared to be married to all people, to love as God loves, across the social, political, religious, racial and sexual boundaries. When we accept God’s invitation to the kingdom of heaven on earth we must be ready to wear the wedding robe of love for all.

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Gospel text for Sunday 8 October 2017

Matthew 21:33-46        Jesus said, “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

‘The stone that the builders rejected

has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is amazing in our eyes’?

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

Reflection        The vineyard is a metaphor for the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God on earth. The landowner, think - stand in for God, plants the vineyard, secures it with a fence and watchtower and provides all that is needed to produce wine. All that remains to be done by the tenants is harvest the grapes and make the wine.  But when it is time for the landowner to collect his share of the harvest the tenants are greedy. Clearly they forget their original agreement with the landowner; they will work the vineyard and return a portion of the harvest to the landowner. They forget that if it was not for the original blessing of the landowner there would not even be a vineyard, no opportunity to do good work. It never occurs to them to wonder how it was that they were fortunate enough to be among those who could work at the vineyard. Why were they not left unemployed or disabled and begging on the streets like so many others? 

As people of God we are blessed with this kingdom, this beautiful earth, in which to live and work and flourish. In the First Book of Chronicles we meet the Israelites bringing their gold, silver and precious stones to be used to build the temple. Receiving these gifts King David prays to God, “But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to make this freewill-offering? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you. O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own.(1 Chron. 29:14, 16) King David 

Like the Israelites who did not create their offerings of gold, silver and precious stones, like the tenants who did not plant and prepare the vineyard to make wine, we did not create our lives nor our opportunities to live and work and thrive.  All that we are and all that we have is pure gift and the appropriate response is gratitude and generosity perfectly expressed by King David, “All things come of you, O God, and of your own have we given you.” 

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Hebrew Testament Text for Sunday 1 October 2017

Exodus 17:1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Reflection        A bit of wisdom that appears to be lost on many of us is, “From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages.” To be clear, the literal interpretation of “the wilderness of Sin" refers to a geographic area near Mt. Sinai, not to a person or persons’ sinfulness/behavior. The wilderness of Sin is the place where the Israelites wander, trying to find their way, struggling to grow into right relationship with themselves, each other and God.

When I imagine this scene I see images of women, men and children on their journey with God, stumbling along through times of celebration for their freedom from slavery as well as times complaining of lack of water or food, experiencing blessing and loss, triumph and defeat, hope and despair, faith and fear. I see them loving their leaders and hating their leaders.  I see them looking back at the way life used to be and looking ahead to how life could be. I see life as described in the Hebrew Testament as well as in our local and national news today. Little seems to change.

We are a people who “journey by stages” even though we tend to forget that point. We do not leap into a happily ever after life. We do not all walk at the same pace nor do we all start with an equal hand. Nonetheless, we, the “whole congregation” are all on this journey through the wilderness that we call life. And like it or not, we are on this journey together. The turmoil of our current social political religious environment has divided families, communities and our nation. Like our quarreling ancestors we regress to our lesser, self-interested, selfish selves (narcissistic, nihilistic, individualistic) rather than grow in our understanding that we are not all equal, we are not all the same, every single one of us deserves dignity and a decent life (wholisitic) and there is no happily ever after life ( a hold-over ideal from our fantastical childhood).

Response to the election of Donald Trump has evoked foment among supporters as well as opposers.  Across the board people are suffering as they cling to their particular position of what is right and foster their need to win. The fact of the matter is, for as long as we wage a win or lose culture war, eventually everyone loses. 

And here we return to the wisdom of the Hebrew Testament, “we journey by stages.” As the contemporary philosopher Ken Wilbur* explicates and I summarize, much as a child first learns to make a sound, then a word, then a sentence, and much as each developmental stage “transcends and includes the former stage” (e.g. the capacity to make a sentence includes the ability to make sounds) so too proceeds the social, emotional and spiritual development of each person. As we proceed on our developmental journeys in the “wilderness of Sin” a fatal flaw festers when we deny, degrade or denigrate people expressing attitudes and beliefs of a former stage of development. In other words, vying to win and prove ourselves right inevitably discounts others and is less than helpful.  

Wilbur argues, people in the leading edge must seek, “out the most appropriate, most complex, most inclusive, and most conscious forms that are possible at that particular time and point of evolution, pointing to new, novel, creative, and adaptive areas for the future to unfold into.” 

The narrow win or lose perspective pits one side against the other. A more expansive view is humble, acknowledging we are all in this wilderness together. The question is not who is right or who will win, the question is, “How do we include everyone in the conversation while seeking the common good?”  or “How best can we stumble by stages through this wilderness of life?” Or perhaps we ought to borrow Moses’ humble cries, “What shall we do, O Lord?” and then deeply listen.

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*  Wilbur, Ken.  Trump and a Post-Truth World. (2017: Shambala Publications, Boulder, CO).

Gospel for Sunday 24 September, 2017

2017 09 24 Matthew 20.1-16        Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Reflection    The kingdom of heaven includes participants with specific endowments and explicit needs, with vastly differing competencies and disparate resources; laborers and landowners, employed and unemployed. The fact of the matter is, we are not all equal. Life is not fair. Though we may have equal rights, we do not have equal opportunity. Some people are born with superior intellects, others with mental challenges. Some inherit strong bodies or extensive wealth, others are born addicted to drugs and a legacy of poverty. Depending on when and where and to whom we are born we may be undereducated or over privileged, we may be shunned or exalted. Life is not equal. Life is not fair.

Which is why the kingdom of heaven depends on us. The kingdom of heaven depends on us to emulate the landowner in Jesus’ teaching tale and, to look with eyes of compassion and act with generosity toward the full brush of humankind, the ones who show up and work for their living and the ones who can barely shuffle to the outpatient hospital for their meds. As Ken Wilbur succinctly states, “It takes more than simply saying, “We are all one! We make room for everybody! Everybody is welcome…” It takes the interior growth, evolution, and development of each and every person…” *

Most people reading this post can identify with the landowner, endowed with more blessings than we require to provide for ourselves and our family. This means we are free to generously give at least a living wage to those in need of material and physical support, and to urge others to do likewise. This is not purely selfless. As we extend generosity we are cultivating our interior growth, accumulating our spiritual wealth, being more caring, more loving, more generous even when it means breaking the rules and caring for people we don’t think have earned it, even when it means valuing people who do not think or feel or act like us. This is living from the depths of our being, being compassionate. This is spiritual wealth.

The question before each of us is, “Are we willing to grow and evolve to insure that the only lens through which we look and judge each other is compassion?” 

 *Wilbur, Ken Trump and a Post-Truth World.  (2017: Shambala Publications, Boulder, CO) p109.

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Psalm text for Sunday 10 September, 2017

Psalm 119:33-40   The Message Version 

God, teach me lessons for living

    so I can stay the course.

Give me insight so I can do what you tell me—

    my whole life one long, obedient response.

Guide me down the road of your commandments;

    I love traveling this freeway!

Give me a bent for your words of wisdom,

    and not for piling up loot.

Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets,

    invigorate me on the pilgrim way.

Affirm your promises to me—

    promises made to all who fear you.

Deflect the harsh words of my critics—

    but what you say is always so good.

See how hungry I am for your counsel;

    preserve my life through your righteous ways!

Reflection       Who does not want to sustain a joyful and holy life? But this is easier said than done, which is why the eight verses in the fifth section of Psalm 119 are so important. Most theologians believe they are the words of King David, a prayer uttered by a man who succumbed to adultery and then murder for a cover-up. I believe these are the words of a man who has come face to face with his own weakness and vulnerability. These are the words of a man who has learned he must turn to something more than himself to sustain a joyful and holy life.

The psalm begins calling out to God because God alone can be our teacher. God alone awakens the Spirit of Wisdom in our hearts. Without listening to the Spirit of Wisdom in our hearts there is every chance we will depend on lesser teachers, misuse our intellect and reasonable faculties. When we fail to root our lives in the Spirit of Wisdom we will surely be distracted by “toys and trinkets, harsh words and critics." Once we turn in that direction we will find every reason to be afraid.

Better we should call to God and pray earnestly not only to know but also to apply God’s Wisdom in our lives, that we may “stay the course" and put our faith in God’s faithfulness. Insight or understanding are not enough. They must be fulfilled by our actions. And so we pray that we might also live every minute of every day doing what is good by the grace of God with us. Here again, we put our faith in God’s faithfulness rather than ourselves.  “Give me insight so I can do what you tell me, my whole life, one long, obedient response.” 

It does not end there. We must also pray to turn away from all those things that distract us from the Wisdom in our hearts; toys and trinkets and all that stuff we keep in the garage and storage sheds. Social, political, religious and economic conventions and rules about the rational course of action; all those things we store in our heads.  “Give me a bent for your words of wisdom…”

Still, this is not enough so we continue praying for the strength to be unmoved by “the harsh words of our critics.” Because we know the Wisdom of God is “always good,” we can depend on it, which is why we pause and pray and listen to the Wisdom in our hearts, no matter what the voices in our heads or the world around us are shouting.

The key to sustaining a joyful and holy life is to listen to the Wisdom of our hearts and to act with confidence in God’s faithfulness.

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Gospel text for Sunday 3 September 2017

Matthew 16:21-28       Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?

“For the Son of Man is to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay everyone for what has been done. Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Reflection        “God forbid it… this must never happen!” No one wants suffering. Not Peter. Not me, not you, not the countless people devastated by the ravages of Hurricane Harvey. Like Peter, we want God to forbid suffering. That would be so much easier than having to live in imitation of Jesus, so much easier than setting our personal comforts aside and caring for all those suffering people. “Jesus, do you not understand, when all hell breaks loose it could cost us our lives?”

Can you hear Jesus’ response? “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Ouch. I want to crawl under a rock. My petty concerns, anxiety about my security, safety, esteem, power and control, my withholding love and care and generosity are stumbling blocks to God’s compassionate presence being revealed in the world.

Yes, I better get behind Jesus but I want to cling to my way of life, to my thoughts, my beliefs, my comforts, my church, my money, my way. Then Jesus asks, “For what will it profit (you) if (you) gain the whole world but forfeit (your) life?” What life is Jesus talking about?

I believe Jesus is talking about our “with God life.” Jesus finds his life in and of and with God. He does not cling to things of this world demanding that they never change. He is willing to challenge the status quo; to let old ideas, thought forms, beliefs and conventional strategies for security, safety, esteem, power and control die even though it costs him dearly. This is what he means by being willing to lose our life to follow him. We must be willing to lose our lives as we have known them in order to live our “with God” life.

Tens of thousands of people are suffering In the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Calling out to God on their behalf is simply not enough, in fact, Jesus would call this being stumbling blocks. When all hell breaks loose it is up to us to live in imitation of Jesus, setting our minds on divine things, caring for all the suffering people without withholding, without judgment. 

Here are three ways you may help the animals and the people suffering from the ravages of Hurricane Harvey. 

Animals

https://www.gofundme.com/rejoiceranch to help the Rejoice Horse Ranch in Texas rescue and care for pets and livestock that are literally pouring onto their ranch.

People

http://www.episcopalrelief.org/hurricane-harvey-response to help the Episcopal Relief and Development Fund provide assistance to people recovering from the impact of Hurricane Harvey.

Ready to Serve

https://www.episcopalrelief.org/what-you-can-do/volunteer/ready-to-serve If you want to volunteer as part of the long term recovery from Hurricane Harvey you can register at this website.

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Christian Testament Text for Sunday 27 August 2018

Romans 12:1-8        I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

Reflection       Who does not want what is “good and acceptable and perfect?” The question is, “Good and acceptable and perfect according to whom?” I believe this is the lynchpin question. In preparation for his visit to the Christian Church in Rome Paul hits the proverbial nail on the head when he counsels, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

What is good and acceptable and perfect is not determined by me or you or Republicans or Democrats or presidents or protesters or any one’s personal preferences or predilections. That would be conforming to the world. What is good and acceptable and perfect is synonymous with the will of God. How then are we to discern the will of God?

The Episcopal tradition finds authority in the confluence of Scripture, Tradition and Reason rooted in Experience. In Scripture the Word of God is revealed in the person of Jesus whose mission and ministry in the world instruct; love God, love yourself, love your neighbor, love your enemy.  The bottom line is compassion. Tradition suggests we find the sacred in ordinary things; bread, wine, sharing meals, offering comfort, touching the suffering, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, caring for the poor and walking together. The bottom line is the holiness of all things.  Reason tells us we are all of one substance, star dust, and therefore are interconnected and interdependent. Everything we say and do has consequences not only for us but for all people and creation which means life is not all about me. It is all about we. We must take responsibility for the common good. The bottom line is, by caring for others we are caring for ourselves. 

Of course this requires a new kind of consciousness, a “renewing of our minds.”  As Paul counsels, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds.” The level of consciousness out of which most of us act most of the time is dualistic, it is conformed to the vagaries of the world. It is all about winners and losers, personal gain and victory regardless of the cost to others. But this is not the mind that “discerns the will of God.”

The mind that discerns the will of God is non-dualistic. It holds the tension of opposites and seeks win-win solutions by carving out the middle way and remembering, “we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.” 

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