Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
September 15, 2013
19 Proper C
Most of my elementary school years were spent living in a bedroom community of New York City. The years were the mid-1960's, after the Cuban Missile Crisis and during the Vietnam War and the middle of the Cold War. Every month, the fire alarm bell would ring and we would have the typical fire drill where everyone left the building in an orderly fashion and went outside until the bell rang indicating that we could go back inside. There was nothing particularly scary about these drills, and we got out of class for a few minutes, which was all good. But, perhaps because of our location near New York City, and certainly because of the era in which we lived, we also had air raid drills. These were not so much fun and were a lot more scary. Instead of going outside, we all went to the cafeteria, an indoor room with no windows, and got down on our knees and put our heads on the floor with our hands clasped behind our head. The whole school was in one place, and even as a 6 year old I was skeptical that this exercise would save us if we were bombed. But the unthinkable never happened. Once we moved to Arkansas, air raid drills became part of our past since no one seemed too worried that Little Rock would be bombed by the enemy.
But then, some 35 years later, on September 11, 2001, the unthinkable did happen and the world came to a grinding halt. The images Jeremiah uses this morning are eerily similar to the pictures on the television on the day of 9/11 and for days and weeks there after. "I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and the hills moved to and fro...I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins." While Jeremiah is looking to a future in which the Babylonians will destroy the people and land of Judah because they have fallen away from their covenant with God, those words also seem to describe the devastation in the wake of 9/11.
When we feel threatened, when we suffer great loss and are made supremely aware of our vulnerability, we look for things that make us feel secure and in control. I can tell you that on 9/11, I was at the bank making sure that I had cash on hand in case the economy crumbled. I was at the gas station in case there was no more gas to be had the next day. The only reason I was not at the grocery store was because I had been the day before. I can rationalize that these were practical matters that needed to be attended to as precautions against what might happen. And, in a sense that was true.. But the truth is that getting cash and filling the car made me feel more secure. I felt a whole lot better doing something tangible and concrete, trusting in the ATM and the gas pump to keep me safe, rather than putting my trust in the God who created me. On a national scale, for the last 12 years we have felt better by doing something tangible and concrete as well, some of which were also practical matters that had to be tended to as a result of the attacks, and much of which was our way of making ourselves feel like we had regained that which we lost.
Unfortunately, one of the side effects of relying on the tangible and concrete to keep us safe is that there are only so many tangible and concrete resources to go around. There is only so much gas in the pump or cash in the machine or milk at the grocery, or only so many economic resources to support war and health care and education. Our tendency is to get competitive, each person for him or herself, until we find ourselves more fractured than ever in the midst of our loss.
Jeremiah’s charge against the people of Judah was essentially that in times of vulnerability and loss, they had turned from God to worship the tangible and concrete things that they thought would bring them security. If they worshiped foreign gods, then perhaps the people of those gods would not attack them. If they amassed wealth at the expense of the poor, perhaps they would have security. If they misused other people to gain power and strength, perhaps nothing bad would happen to them. The end result of their efforts to gain security and prevent vulnerability is that the people of God were fractured. God’s anger at those God loved the most was that in times of trouble the people turned away from God toward the tangible and the concrete for the comfort those things could not really provide, and as a result God’s people were broken and divided.
Jesus tells us two parables this morning about loss: the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. In both parables, something of some value is missing. In the first parable, the shepherd makes the rather absurd decision to leave the 99 sheep to their own devices and go after the one missing sheep. When he finds the sheep and returns it to the fold, he rejoices greatly, even calling his friends and neighbors and saying "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost." Likewise, when the woman who is searching for her coin finally finds it, she to calls her friends and neighbors and says "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I lost." In both cases, the return of something of relatively small value is celebrated by a great party. And in both cases, reference is made to the rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents.
Jesus seems to be making a rather large leap from the finding of a lost sheep or coin to the rejoicing in heaven over a sinner who repents. After all, neither a sheep nor a coin is capable of repentance. The sheep just wandered off, as sheep are prone to do, and no telling how the coin got lost, but it obviously wasn’t the coins’ fault. So, Jesus must be up to something else here. Both the sheep and the coin were part of a larger whole. There were 100 sheep and 10 coins, both nice round numbers that indicate completeness. When the sheep goes missing and the coin turns up lost, that whole is fractured. It is not just that the sheep is missing, but that the community is broken. It is not just that one little coin is missing, but that the nine are not complete without it. When the sheep is returned and the coin is found and restored to the others, the 100 and the 10 are complete again. And there is great rejoicing, both on earth and in heaven, rejoicing not only that the individual sheep and coin were found, but rejoicing that what was broken is now whole.
The reality is that we cannot fix what is broken by breaking it some more. We cannot find what is lost by losing more. Jeremiah and Jesus both call us, in times of uncertainty, loss, and vulnerability, whatever the cause, to look for ways to create wholeness, to find what was lost by acting like the people of God we were created to be. Eventually God will say to Jeremiah "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." There is great rejoicing in the heavens when we actually live like people who belong to God and work to make the broken whole again.
Amen.
Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
September 8, 2013
18 Proper C
When Jesus begins dispensing common sense, I get suspicious. Jesus is not the wise grandparent who tells us not to cry over spilt milt, or who urges us to save for a rainy day. Jesus is not a Benjamin Franklin type who says things like "A penny saved is a penny earned," which, in truth, Ben Franklin probably never said. Jesus says things like "the last shall be first and the first shall be last" when we all know full well where the first and last seems to wind up. Or Jesus says "those who save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will save it." Or Jesus says "blessed are the poor," or "turn the other cheek," or Jesus tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who hurt us. Those are the kinds of counter intuitive things Jesus says. But today we hear Jesus say "For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether or not you have enough to complete it?" We also hear Jesus say "Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not first sit down and see whether or not he can win the war?" When Jesus starts offering common sense pearls of wisdom, we can be sure that there is a trick up his sleeve.
This morning, Jesus’ pearls of common sense are actually buried between two very difficult teachings about discipleship. "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brother and sisters, and even life itself cannot be my disciples" comes first, then "So, therefore, none of you can become my disciples if you do not give up all your possessions." What do building a tower or waging war have to do with hating all our relatives and giving up all our possessions?
Interestingly, in order to build a tower, one must have resources. Money is needed to buy building materials and pay workers. Workers work best when they are appreciated, not hated. In order to wage war, money and materials are also needed, along with people. So, on the one hand, Jesus is telling us that in order to be his disciple we must hate all our relatives and give up all our possessions, and on the other hand, Jesus is telling us to make sure we have what we need to carry the cross of Christ just as we would make sure we have what we need to build a tower or go to war. Can Jesus really have this both ways?
Actually, yes, in the paradox of the gospel Jesus can have this both ways. To carry the cross of Jesus, which is what Jesus requires of his disciples, is to put all our trust in Jesus. The answer to "what do we need in order to follow Jesus" is simple: Jesus. Jesus is the sum total of all we need to be Jesus’ disciple. As wonderful as relationships can be, and as useful or enjoyable as our material possessions might be, they are unnecessary for following Jesus. Counting the cost of following Jesus means looking at the people and things in our lives and saying "I follow Jesus, not you." And "I care what Jesus thinks, not you." Does that mean we have to literally hate our relatives and give away everything we own to follow Jesus? And, quite frankly, in some ways following Jesus would be easier if we had no people or possessions in our lives. We wouldn’t have to worry about what our boss thinks, or the coach, or the neighbors. We wouldn’t have to worry about working to pay our mortgage when considering how we follow Jesus. The reality of our lives, however, is that we are blessed with relatives and friends who we love and resources that we can use to make a difference for the good in our community. But Jesus does mean to be clear that 1) Nothing, no human relationship, no specific thing, and no manner of external resources, nothing is required to follow Jesus except to pick up the cross of Christ and get going. And 2) If we have relationships, things or resources, we are only to follow Jesus, not our stuff.
Jesus is demanding. We like the approval of other people. We come to church to be in a particular kind of relationship with other people on the Christian journey. Jesus says "Fine. Just make sure you follow me, not them." We also like our props. We are Episcopalians. We like our crosses and candles and beautiful vestments and silver. Jesus says "Fine. Just make sure you follow me, not them." And together with each other and the Holy Spirit, we do much good in the community with the resources we have. Jesus says "Fine. Just make sure you are trusting me, not them." Following Jesus means being willing to take risks for the gospel despite what others might think, and trusting Jesus rather than any other person or thing. Following Jesus means following Jesus.
Amen.
Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
September 1, 2013
17 Proper C
When I was in seminary, one of the requirements for graduation was passing the dreaded Bible Content Exam. The exam consisted of 100 verses or passages of Scripture and we had to identify the book in which the verse or passage was found. The test was multiple choice and there were four options given for the answer, but, of course, only one of the options was correct. On the one hand, this exam seemed overly picky and designed to distinguish those who were raised, say, Southern Baptist, and found the exam to be a piece of cake, from those of us who were raised as Episcopalians and anticipated the test with great foreboding. On the other hand, however, I think there was something more at stake than simply being able to identify Luke as the book which contains the words "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior" or Isaiah as the source of "Comfort, comfort my people." The test was really designed to discover whether or not we knew the sacred story. The truth is that, with a few 7th grade English skills, and a good knowledge of the Sacred story, you could pass the test without having memorized the whole Bible. Is the verse or passage prose or poetry? Does the passage offer doom or hope? Does Jesus sound like an urgent prophet or a wise philosopher? Is the passage part of a narrative or a list of instructions? Put those English skills together with a good knowledge of the story, and figuring out from 4 choices in which book the passage is found is not rocket science. But without a good knowledge of the Sacred story, all the 7th grade English skills in the world were not going to help. The point was that we had to really know and understand the story of God and God’s people. Only then could we help other people find God in their own stories.
When Jeremiah lights into the people this morning, what is their sin? Their sin is that they do not know their story. They have forgotten the story of the God who brought them up from the land of Egypt, led them in the wilderness, and brought them into a plentiful land. Instead, the people have gone after worthless things and have become worthless themselves. When times are tough, and they were in the late 6th and early 5th centuries BC, the first port in a storm will have to do if the boat is flimsy. The people of Judah were facing conquest and destruction by the Babylonians. The threat was grave and the people of God were scared. Because the people had forgotten their story, forgotten the miraculous and faithful actions of God on their behalf in the past, their spiritual boat was flimsy and they turned to the easily available gods that did not even exist and had no power to save the people from destruction. They forgot their story and had only water from leaky cisterns to quench their thirst rather the abundant and available living water. The psalmist echoes the same cry when God says "I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth and I will fill it. But my people did not listen to my voice, so I gave them over to their stubborn hearts." The people had forgotten their story, made bad decisions, and God let them suffer the consequences.
The book of Hebrews was written to encourage weary but faithful Christians. Our passage this morning appeals to the story of Scripture when the author writes "Let mutual love continue-do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers." The reader is reminded that, in the sacred story, Abraham and Sarah show hospitality to three strangers who turn out to be messengers, or angels, of God. And Jesus does not just make up his instructions about table etiquette at a dinner party. Those instructions are grounded in the larger story of Scripture. The book of Proverbs has similar instruction about being humble and avoiding arrogance, or eating at the table of a ruler. Proverbs 26 says "Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great; for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here,’ than to be put lower in the presence of a noble. All of our readings this morning point us to the larger story of God and God’s people.
Jeremiah reminds us that when we try to rely only on our experience of God in the current moment to get us through whatever predicament we face, we may find the well dry and we will turn to whatever god is convenient even if that god has no power to help us. When we know the story of God and God’s people, we know that our God is the God who more often sustains us for the journey than offers a quick fix, who often uses the least likely people to work in our lives rather than the most likely, and who, in hind sight is as often found in the places where God seemed most absent as in the places where God was so obviously present. Above all, the sacred story tells us that our God is the God who loves us unconditionally and that the valley of the shadow of death never has the final word. When we know the sacred story, we can be nourished from fountains of living water even our thirst is too deep for words. But, as Jeremiah reminds us, we have to know the story.
Amen.
