24 Proper C

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
October 17, 2010

24 Proper C

My hunch is that most of us, young or less young have some experience with persistence. We learn from a young age that to get whatever we want in life, we have to keep trying. As a very young child, we learn that, the longer we pester Mom or Dad for what we want, the better the chance we will succeed. We learn that we have to be persistent in study, or work, or practice, in order to succeed. . Many times, but not always, our persistence pays off. If we study hard enough, we’ll probably pass the test. If we work hard enough, we may well get the raise or promotion. If we practice the piano long enough, we’ll be able to play the music we like. If the stewardship ministry team works long and hard enough, the church will have the pledges we need for the work we are given to do. When we do not succeed, we often wonder whether we should have tried just a little harder. We know that persistence pays off more often than not, so when we fail to reach our goal, we can easily think that our lack of persistence was the problem. But in my experience, and perhaps yours, prayer is the one area where persistence just does not always seem to reap the results I ask for. Did my loved one die because I was not persistent enough in prayer. Do I believe that if I had just prayed a little harder, or gotten just a few more people to pray, she would have lived? I don’t think so, but today’s gospel lesson certainly seems to tell us that if we pray hard enough, we will get whatever we want from God.

In Jesus’ parable this morning, the widow wants the judge to grant her justice against her opponent. In Jesus’ time, judges were entrusted with protecting the poor, the widows and the orphans. Widows had no way to support themselves and they were totally dependent on God and the justice of the judge for their survival. This judge ignores the widow’s request, and, because the widow is not willing to take "no" for an answer, she repeats it. This cycle occurs over and over again, until finally worn down, the judge grants the widow justice so that she will go away. At the end of the parable, Jesus says "Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them." Jesus seems to be telling us that if we pray long enough and hard enough, if we are persistent enough and if we refuse to take "no" for an answer, eventually we will wear God down and get what we want.

How can we understand this parable when the teaching seems so contrary to our experience and seems to cast us in the roll of spoiled children?

The reading from 2 Timothy reminds us that all Scripture is given to us for our learning. We tend to shy away from such passages because we wonder if God really wants us to stone our children when they talk back to us, as Deuteronomy 21 suggests, or refrain from wearing blended fabric Leviticus 19 and Deuteronomy 22 suggest, or hate our mother and father, brothers and sisters, or even life itself as Jesus suggests in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. But the writer of 2 Timothy is not talking about every individual verse of Scripture, nor is 2 Timothy talking about taking one verse of Scripture and using that single verse to interpret all of Scripture. 2 Timothy is telling us that the whole of Scripture is inspired by God and given to us for our learning. God invites us to use the fullness of Scripture to understand a single difficult passage, so that we don’t have to rely on just our own experience and the words of a single passage of Scripture to figure out what God is calling us to do and be.

So, in this morning’s parable, we have a widow and an unjust judge. When we think about all of Scripture, we remember that over and over again in the gospels, especially Luke’s gospel, we see Jesus identify himself with the poor and the outcast, the widows and the orphans. In Matthew’s gospel, we hear Jesus say that whenever we minister to the hungry and the thirsty, to those on the margins of society, we minister to him. We watch Jesus care for those who have been cast aside, which would certainly include the widows of Jesus’ time. We hear Jesus say in the Book of Revelation "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." And in the Hebrew Scriptures, the one who cares passionately about justice is God. And, through out Scripture, typically the ones who act unjustly and exploit other people, are people, not God. In the parables, typically, the bad king, the rude guest, the corrupt manager, or the stingy farmer represent people, not God. So, in the context of all of Scripture, perhaps there is different way to understand the parable of the unjust judge. Perhaps God is the one knocking so persistently, demanding justice, and perhaps WE are the judge. Perhaps the persistence in this parable is God’s persistence, the knocking that will not stop until justice has been served. And in this parable, suppose that we are the judge, the ones empowered by God to bring about justice, to care for the poor and the oppressed, the outcasts and the victims of injustice. The persistent knocking is knocking on the door of our hearts so that we may see and hear and feel the injustice of the world and be inspired by God to do something about it. Perhaps prayer is not about continually pestering God to do something about all that is wrong with our lives and the world until God gives in just so we will go away. Perhaps prayer is, at least in part, our listening for God to tell us all that is broken in this world and how we are to work on God’s behalf to bring about justice, healing, and peace.

God says through the prophet Jeremiah "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they will be my people." These words do not describe a relationship with God in which we badger God until we get what we want, nor does this passage describe a God who wants us to stop the pestering and go away.. These words describe a relationship with God in which our hearts are transformed.

In the end, the story of Scripture, and the parable of the unjust judge, is not the story of human persistence at all. The story of Scripture, including our parable this morning, is the story of the persistence of God and our response to God’s persistent knocking.

Amen.

23 Proper C

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Episcopal Church

October 13, 2013

 23 Proper C

 This summer, we celebrated the life of Helen Myers, mourned her death, and committed her eternal life to God.  Helen was a member of this parish, although only a few of us had the privilege of knowing her as she was homebound for the last many years.  Helen was born in 1916 and grew up on the south side of Springfield attending the small Presbyterian Church on South Limestone which became South Side Mennonite Church.  She grew up poor, even before the Great Depression when almost everyone in Springfield was poor.  She married her high school sweetheart, Charles, who grew up at Christ Church and sang in the choir here as a young boy, then they moved to Pennsylvania and Connecticut and other places before returning to retire in Springfield some 25 years ago.  Charles died suddenly shortly after retiring and at some point thereafter Helen became a member of Christ Church, coming to the Wednesday Eucharist when she could, sending out reminder cards for our various ministries for many years, and consuming every issue of the Clarion as soon as the newsletter came out.  Helen knew everything that was going on at Christ Church and had half of Oakwood Village saving pennies for our Mile of Pennies program, even though the only time she was able to come to church in the time I have been here was for an organ recital in 2003 or 2004.

Even though most of us never knew Helen, we have all been impacted by her life.  While at the time she would never allow us to tell of her generosity, the truth is that she was the major donor that made the new slate roof possible in 2008.   She was the major contributor to the organ project in 2003.  And in the late 1990’s, Helen was the one who made the gift that air-conditioned both this building and Hollenbeck House.  When I or anyone else would thank Helen for her generosity, her response was always the same “To whom much is given, much is expected.”  End of conversation. 

One interesting fact about Helen’s generosity was that neither I nor my predecessors ever asked her for anything.  She told Bob and Ruth Partlow, the rectors in the 1990’s, that the church needed to be air conditioned and she wanted to make that happen.  In 2003, she called me to come visit her.  She knew we were going to have some work done on the organ and she wanted that work done right and as much of the organ restored as possible, and gave a major gift to make that happened.  And in 2008, she called again and asked me to come see her.  I thought that was odd since I had just gone to see her the week before, but Helen was an absolute delight to visit, so we set up a time and I went.  Helen had a substantial amount of money in an account where it was not being used.  She considered that to be wasteful and asked what major projects we had going on that needed funding.  When I mentioned the slate roof, she was delighted.  Her husband was an engineer and loved sound buildings.  She would make the lead gift to make that possible.  Helen saw a need, recognized potential, and had the ability to make something amazing happen.  We never asked for a thing, and Helen would never let us tell the story of her generosity until now.

The question is: “What inspired such love for Christ Church in a woman who really never attended church here?” 

About 90 years ago, when her husband Charles was a young boy growing up at Christ Church, his father died.  His mother worked hard to raise Charles, but times were difficult financially and life was a struggle for them.  The people of Christ Church stepped in and made sure Charles stayed in school and the family had what they needed.  Those folks mentored Charles, encouraged him, and saw that he had what he needed to finish high school.  When Charles finished high school, the general expectation of family and friends was that Charles would get a job and support his mother.  But the people of Christ Church stepped in and prevailed.  They saw potential in Charles and made sure he went to college and reached his goal to become an engineer.  When he finished college and had a job, he and Helen married after having dated for about 8 years, and they moved from Springfield.  Charles’ career as an engineer was long and quite lucrative.

To her dying breath, Helen was extraordinarily grateful for what Christ Church has done for her husband, and thus her family, some 90 years ago.  Helen  considered her generosity to be simply an expression of her gratitude to a church that transformed the life and the potential of one child and that child’s future family.  Her deep love for Christ Church was born of that gratitude.  Her generosity was gratitude in action. 

This morning, we hear the story of Jesus and the 10 lepers.  How easily we can walk off from all that God has done for us and not return to give thanks!  While the 10^th leper’s act of gratitude may be a little demonstrative for us reserved Episcopalians, obviously the point is that the healed man understood the magnitude of what had been done for him and returned to give thanks.  The parallel between the story of the healed man and Helen’s story is clear.  Helen also understood the magnitude of the difference God, through Christ Church, had made in her husband’s life and in her own, and she acted on that gratitude. 

Gratitude and generosity are both commendable and well worth imitating as we think about our own offerings to this parish.  But I think there is a challenge here that runs even deeper than the challenge to think about how our own lives reflect our gratitude for all God has done for us. 

Helen’s gratitude in the last decades of her life was for what this parish had done for her husband 80 or 90 years ago.  What are we doing as a parish, both as individuals within a parish and as a parish as a whole, that 90 years from now will cause someone to look back with the kind of gratitude Helen had for Christ Church?  How are we working to be a community of faith that will inspire that kind of gratitude?  Obviously no one is around now who was an adult in the 1920’s influencing a young man to pursue his education and helping to make that possible.  But my hunch is that there was no vestry resolution to do so, no sermon from the rector, and no committee or Ministry Team got involved.  My guess is that some folks got together, saw a need and recognized potential, and made something happen that transformed a life.  In the story of the 10 lepers, Jesus saw a need, had the ability, recognized potential and made something happen, too.  Where do we see need, recognize potential, and have the ability to make something happen?  The reading from Jeremiah reminds us that we are called to take action now, where we are presently located, in the current circumstances of our lives, and not wait until our life situation changes to something more suitable for doing the work of God.  Jesus calls us to see need, recognize potential, and use our abilities to make amazing things happen now.  Our response to that call will transform both our lives and the lives of others.  Like Christ Church and their care of a young man, like Helen Myers and her great generosity, our response to Jesus’ call to see need, to recognize potential, and to be generous with our abilities is the stewardship of our lives in action.                                                                             

Amen.

22 Proper C

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
October 6, 2013

22 Proper C

When I was a sophomore in college, I took the standard intro to Bible class. The class was fascinating. I had never thought much about the authorship of Biblical texts, so I was unshaken to learn that the first 5 books of the Bible evolved over centuries, and were not written by Moses himself. The idea that stories were passed down orally from generation to generation before they were ever written down made the stories all the more dynamic to me. Of course I knew the story of Moses and the Exodus, but the Babylonian exile was completely new information. We read the Old Testament prophets who predicted gloom and destruction to God’s people, who had strayed far from the path God had set for them. We heard the prophets tell the people that if they did not repent, God would punish them with the loss of the promised land to foreigners. We watched as those threats became real when the Assyrians invaded in 722 BC and destroyed the Northern Kingdom. We heard more prophets warn the southern kingdom that the same would happen to them if they did not repent and mend their ways, and indeed, in 586 BC, the Babylonians invaded, carried the chosen people into exile, and destroyed the Promised Land. Both today’s reading from Lamentation and the psalm come from the time when the people were exiled in Babylon, trying to figure out how to worship God with no temple and no promised land. How could they sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? And while I wondered whether God would actually punish the chosen people so harshly, or if that might just be their understanding of the events, rather than reality, I found that to be largely an intellectual exercise rather than a challenge to my faith.

Until we read Psalm 137, and I was stopped in my tracks. Psalm 137 is appalling. Here, in Scripture, we find not only a psalm of heartbreak as the chosen people of God mourn the loss of the Promised Land, but also a psalm of sheer human vengeance. "O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy the one who pays you back for what you have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!" I was horrified by those words, and the fact that these words of vengeance are part of holy scripture troubled me deeply.

Scripture, as I was to learn, does not just contain a record of God’s mighty acts and the faithful response of God’s people to those mighty acts. Scripture is unabashedly honest about recognizing and naming human brokenness and failure while at the same time being clear not to commend that failure. I knew that, on a certain level, having read in Genesis that Cain killed his brother Abel, and that Noah got drunk after the flood, neither of which are commendable but both are stories told in Scripture. What would cause my anger to echo that of Psalm 137? Gross injustice or an act of violence against someone I love? The loss of everything and everyone I hold dear? Utter inertia on the part of those in authority to protect and defend the vulnerable? Psalm 137 has preserved that raw human emotion for all to witness and plenty of other places in Scripture call us to a life that does not act on that anger.

In the gospel lesson this morning, we hear the disciples say to Jesus "Increase our faith!" Immediately prior to this request, Jesus has given the disciples two admonitions. First, Jesus tells them that it would be better to have a millstone hung around their necks and be cast into the sea than to be an obstacle to someone else’s faith. Secondly, he tells them that if another disciple sins, they are to confront the offender and if the offender repents, they are to forgive. These are overwhelming admonitions and the disciples respond to them by saying to Jesus "Increase our faith!" If only they had enough faith, they might be able to live up to Jesus’ high expectations. We know from all these weeks of hearing the words of Jeremiah and from this morning’s psalm that the Hebrew people have a collective memory of what happens to God’s chosen people when they do not live up to God’s expectations for them, and there is a collective memory of a time when such faith seemed impossible. In response to the disciples’ request, Jesus tells the disciples that if his followers had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could uproot a mulberry tree and plant it in the sea.

The truth is, many of us have at some time or another, felt the depth of despair reflected in the words of Psalm 137, and we have also wished we had the faith to do the impossible. When life is overwhelming beyond imagination, whatever the cause, we want the faith to be able to make things whole again. We want to know that it is not our lack of faith that is preventing a solution. On the surface, Jesus’ words are not very helpful here. When we crave a deeper faith, a faith that will allow us to make right the wrongs of the world, we hear Jesus say "If you had even the most minute amount of faith, you could uproot a tree," and we figure our faith must be terribly lacking.

Jesus, however, is not telling the disciples that they do not have enough faith. Jesus is telling the disciples, and us, that we need to understand faith differently. Faith is not about having a quantity sufficient to do spectacular tricks like toss a tree into the sea. Nor is faith about living a life good enough to keep God from getting mad at us. Jesus uses the impossible scenario of tossing a tree into the sea to show the disciples that faith is not about what we can do ourselves. Faith is about opening ourselves to allow God to do spectacular things through us. Jesus was not telling the disciples that their current faith was too small to do great things. Jesus was assuring the disciples that God can do great things through them. Jesus turns the disciples’ understanding of faith upside down and inside out. Faith is not about us. Faith is about God and letting God work through us to accomplish what seems impossible.

Eventually, after 50 years in captivity in Babylon, the Hebrew people will be allowed to return home to the Promised Land. Their time in exile will have increased their faith and they will have a new understanding of the way God works in their lives, apart from any particular piece of land or place of worship. In not too many more chapters of Luke’s gospel, the disciples will witness the horror of the crucifixion and the joy of the resurrection. They will experience God working through them in ways they could never imagine and with a faith they, themselves, could never produce. The message of the scripture is not that we humans will always be faithful, but that God will always be faithful. When times are tough and life is overwhelming, Jesus calls us not to summon up a faith that will allow us to do great things ourselves, but to believe that, in the midst of whatever suffering we find ourselves, God will do great things through us.

Amen.

21 Proper C

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
September 29, 2013

21 Proper C

This past Tuesday, I had the joy of delivering packages of socks and underwear to elementary schools around Springfield. Our Christmas in July offering yielded 6 full bags of socks and 6 full bags of packages of underwear this year, so we had enough for delivery to 6 local elementary schools. Over 60% of the children in each of those 6 elementary schools live in poverty, and we know from the people who work in those schools that there is no money in some of those families for even basic necessities. There is just nothing quite like walking into the office of an elementary school with two sacks stuffed with socks and underwear and handing them to an unsuspecting school secretary. We have been doing this long enough at Christ Church that there are not actually a lot of unsuspecting school secretaries out there. Most of the time, they are very grateful for the delivery but no longer surprised. One time I walked into an office and was greeted with the words "Oh, I wish you had come 20 minutes ago!" I’ll spare you the details, but needless to say our gifts were needed. Sometimes a relatively new employee will say "Now I know where those come from" when I hand the bags across the counter. This year I got no surprised looks, but lots of gratitude. The reaction I will always remember is the reaction of the community connector, or social worker, at one of the school the very first year we delivered socks and underwear. She was near tears when she said "No one realizes how much our children need these things."

This morning, in the passage from Jeremiah, we hear Jeremiah make what appears on the surface to be a run of the mill real estate agreement. The details of the agreement are a bit foreign to us-Jeremiah has the right of redemption by purchase to the land being sold by his cousin Hanamel. The right of redemption is something like first right of refusal, although in the case of right of redemption the land stays in the family. We are given every little detail of the transaction, so between those details and the fact that God told Jeremiah this transaction would take place, we are led to believe that this real estate agreement is in Jeremiah’s best interest. The only problem is that this is a very bad piece of real estate and Jeremiah is actually in prison. Jeremiah has told the people of Judah, his own people, that God is using the Babylonians, the enemy, to punish the people of Judah for their sins. Those sins were things like worshiping foreign gods, and ignoring the poor in their midst. In times of war, telling the government that God is using the enemy to punish the current leadership and the people will land a person in jail. The real estate is a bad investment because the Babylonians will soon invade Judah and completely destroy Jerusalem. Jeremiah’s property will be destroyed, abandoned, and worthless. But God tells Jeremiah to put the deeds to the land in an earthenware jar where they will last a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land." Despite all evidence to the contrary, and in the midst of impending disaster, God calls Jeremiah and the people to hope in a future that is better than their current situation or than the immediate future.

In the gospel reading, Jesus tells the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Lazarus spent his days lying at the gate of the rich man’s house, covered with sores, hungry and humiliated. The rich man spent his days dressed in purple and fine linen and feasting sumptuously. When they both die, the roles are reversed and Lazarus has the far better life in Hades than does the rich man, who wants Lazarus to wait on him. When the rich man can get no relief for his misery, he asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house to warn his five brothers of their fate. But Abraham says no. "If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead." The rich man’s sin was that he ignored Lazarus lying at his gate, if he ever really saw him to begin with. Moses and the prophets have a good bit to say about how the poor are to be treated. The book of Deuteronomy makes numerous provisions for the poor, and the Psalms are full of references to the way God will lift up the poor and crush the oppressor. Lazarus may have been invisible to the rich man, but Lazarus was not invisible to God.

What do Jeremiah’s real estate transaction, and Lazarus and the rich man have to do with delivering socks and underwear to elementary schools in Springfield? In the story of Lazarus and the rich man, and through out the gospels, Jesus calls us to see those whom the world ignores or simply does not see. Jesus calls us to open our eyes to see the need around us. Sometimes that need is obvious, like a man lying at the gate, covered with flies and having his wounds licked by wild dogs seeking blood. Other times it is less obvious and far easier to ignore. Jeremiah’s real estate transaction reminds us that God sees hope where we see disaster. Just as God saw hope in Jeremiah’s purchase of land that would soon be destroyed, God calls us to see hope where the world sees failure and would give up. We deliver socks and underwear to children who don’t have the things we take for granted as a sign to them and to us that they are not forgotten and we will not give up on them. We deliver socks and underwear, and cook meals, and sack groceries, and provide housing, and tutor children because God calls us to see hope where the world only sees need, and to see need where the world sees nothing. But what are we missing? Who do we not see because we are afraid to look? Today we hear God call us to open our eyes and look carefully at the world around us. God challenges us to open our eyes so that we can see those that God sees but the world does not, and to invest in God’s hope for a future where no one goes unnoticed. Who are we not seeing?

Amen.

20 Proper C

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Episcopal Church
September 22, 2013

20 Proper C

Two weeks ago, Jesus was handing out common sense advice and saying things like "For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost to see whether you have enough to complete it?" That Sunday, Jesus also said "Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with then thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty-thousand." When Jesus comes at us with common sense advice, there is usually a trick up his sleeve, since he is the one who usually says things like "the last will be first and the first will be last," and "turn the other check," and "blessed are the poor," and "those who save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will save it." But while we have to wonder what Jesus is up to when he is dispensing common sense, this week Jesus makes no sense at all. Jesus seems to be commending the very traits we warn our children against: cheating, dishonesty, and laziness for starters. Once Jesus has commended these dubious character traits, he says "Whoever is faithful in a very little, is faithful also in much. And whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest in very much." That part, at least, makes sense. As I used to tell my children when they were little "If you are going to eat like that when you are at home, how can I possibly think you will have good table manners anywhere else." This parable should have a warning label that reads "Do not attempt to imitate this parable at home."

Here is a thought. The rich man fires the manager for squandering his property. So far, so good. If the manager has, indeed, been squandering the rich man’s property, he deserves to be fired. Now that we know that the manager is a person of dubious integrity, we are not surprised that the manager would act in his own self-interest and cut the debt owed to the rich man by that man’s customers. By cutting the debt, the man wins friends and will have a place to stay once he no longer has a paycheck. So far, the story makes sense. But just at the point when the manager should be thrown in prison, the master commends the manager for acting shrewdly. The manager has squandered the master’s property, taken 50 or 80 cents on the dollar as payment for debt owed the master, and the manager is now told that he will be welcomed into the eternal homes.

But, what if the manager has so badly squandered the master’s property that getting back 50 or 80 percent of what is owed to the master is actually a great bargain? Instead of looking at a total loss, the rich man is actually getting back 50-80% of what he is owed. Given that the manager has squandered the rich man’s property, now we have a win-win. The master is happy to get something back. The manager is happy because now he has friends to stay with. The clients are happy because their debt load is now lower. Jesus follows the parable by saying "Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful in very much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much." In some bizarre way, the manager has been faithful in a very little and will be welcomed into the eternal homes.

Jesus is using this strange parable to teach us something about our relationship to the Kingdom of God. On the one hand, if we live with the values of the Kingdom now, if we can be faithful with what we are given now, God will know that we can be faithful with the abundance of eternal life later. If we are not faithful with what we have now, then God has no reason to think we will be faithful with the abundance of eternal life. The problem with this line of reasoning is that it leads us to believe that we earn eternal life by being faithful with what we have now. While that might make for a powerful stewardship sermon, and we could have competitive pledging to see who is the most faithful and who is clearly the most likely to get into heaven, the idea that we earn our way to heaven is simply not the gospel. The message of the gospel is that life, now and forever, is a gift secured for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And that, I believe, is the point of the parable. Life-all of life, this life and the next, the eternal life that actually begins with our baptism is a gift. We have done nothing to earn or deserve this gift. Jesus is calling us to be faithful with that gift and not squander what we have been given. We are faithful with the gift of life when we use all that we have and all that we are to make the Kingdom of God a present reality for those around us. We squander the gift when we are selfish and believe that what God has given us-whether the resources of time or talent or material things-God has given us for our use alone. We know from the rest of the Gospel that the Kingdom of God is in our midst when the poor and the outcasts are raised up, the sick are healed, and justice and peace guide our lives. What would the world around us look like if we used our lives to give God an 80% return, or even a 50% return, on the investment God has in us? Perhaps God would commend us for our shrewdness and the world around us would look a little more like the Kingdom of God.

Amen.