Year A Proper 28: the rewrite

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

At first glance, it’s an easy one. The master distributes wealth, gifts, talents. The recipients either put them to work and harvest their reward, or bury them, ignore them, and finally hand them back covered with dirt and none the shinier for it. The shrewd investors are rewarded; the mattress hoarder is punished. Use your God-given talents or wail and gnash your teeth: the choice is yours.

Easy. But weeping and gnashing of teeth do not make for much of a gospel message.

There are a couple of problems with this kind of allegorical reading. First of all, the third slave tells his master, “You are a harsh man who reaps where he does not sow”: hardly the image of an all-creating, loving, all-encompassing God without whom nothing is sown, to whom all harvest is owed, who sustains all life. Either the slave is wrong, and misunderstands his master’s business; or he is right, in which case the master can hardly be identified with God; and either way he is pretty foolish.

At our Bible Study Tuesday, Elaine helpfully pointed out that if the slave is correct and the master is a jerk, his servant had to be out of his mind to tell it to him face to face. And then throw his muddy, dirty talent back at him. He was just looking for trouble!

And that is one interpretation of the parable: that the third slave was looking for trouble, insulting and maligning his master, challenging the one who had control over his livelihood, his life, his destiny, like a rebellious child. And like a rebellious child, he was put in time-out, where there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, which sounds remarkably like some of the toddler tantrums we all have witnessed from time to time. And the good children got ice cream for dinner.

Which sounds like a good, old-fashioned moralistic nursery tale: but not like much of a gospel message.

Of course, if the third slave was right, and the master’s money was already dirty before he put it in the ground: extorted money; drug money; mob money; ill-gotten gains; well then the third slave becomes a hero. He is the only one brave enough to stand up to the man and give it right back to him, man to man: “I was afraid, but not any more. I will say it straight: You are a bad man, and you don’t deserve my interest.” The first two slaves are the fools, duped into doing the master’s dirty work for him, and the third is the whistleblower, the honest worker, the hero. Who gets thrown into the outer darkness to weep and wail and gnash his teeth for his pains.

We know it can happen. But does it make a gospel message?

Here’s the thing: it could be that Jesus is telling a story not about the kingdom of God but the way we live now. It could be that Jesus is saying, look at how things are working out in real life. Those who have plenty get more, and those who have little lose it because they don’t have the economic power to bargain their way out of debt, to pay the people who could advise them wisely, to buy comprehensive insurance against losing the little that they own. And the millionaire master, who can afford to liquidate large, massive sums of money for his servants to play with while he is away on business; he says, tough luck. There is not a whole lot of compassion in this picture; not a great deal of grace.

It could be that Jesus was holding up a mirror to a society that put its faith in money, in power bought and sold. He is parlaying the message of the prophet into a story, a tale about the complacent ones who say, “It doesn’t matter how I earn my money or use or abuse my power: it’s all mine, it’s all on me, and God will do neither good nor evil; God doesn’t even notice.”

The great and terrible day of the Lord is near, says the prophet, says Jesus: God will take notice. Neither their silver nor their gold will deliver them on the day of wrath, the dies ire, the great and terrible day of the Lord.

In fact, the only thing that saves them, that saves us, is grace. Stuck in the parable of this world, we are trapped either in servitude, in pandering to a mean master, in disgrace and punishment and despair, or in the moral morass of the despotic millionaire. No one in that parable comes off well.

But we heard just a couple of weeks ago how the meek will inherit the earth. The one-talent, fearful, timid slave, as meek as milk, will inherit the earth. God will raise up the lowly and cast down the haughty from their heights. No more rich getting richer at the expense of the poor; the manifesto of the Magnificat, the message of the Gospel turns the story on its head. The third slave gets his fairy tale ending, and the others? Well, that’s for God to decide.

But a God whose property, thank goodness, is always to have mercy.

That, to me, sounds more like a gospel message.

And there is more good news. We just rewrote the story. Which means, we can rewrite the story.

What if last week’s bridesmaids, instead of dividing into two groups and splitting the party, halving the joy: what if they had shared their lamps and all gone in together? What if the first two slaves had taken the third under their wings and taught him their investing strategies? What if he had asked them for help? What if all three had pooled their resources and bought themselves out of indentured servitude altogether: the money in the story is about fifteen years’ wages, times one, times two, times five? Surely they could have done more together than apart. And their master could obviously spare the change.

We have the power, the authority, if we have the will, to rewrite the story. If we rewrote our story, perhaps we could throw off the narrative of the widening gap between rich and poor, and work together for the dignity and security of all people. We could write a parable of economic justice. We could help the meek into their earthly inheritance.

Of course, it’s all speculation. Jesus didn’t give us too many answers. He did tell a lot of stories. The story that he told the most was that the kingdom of God was at hand, that God’s will for God’s people will be, is to be fulfilled; the will of a gracious God whose kingdom is peace, whose property is mercy, whose will for all people is salvation.

Which brings us full circle. If we read this parable as a story rather than as a threat; if we go back to reading it as a parable of the kingdom of God, it becomes a place wherein largesse is distributed in amounts beyond our dreams, and those who go out and share it, share the grace, share the gospel, find that it is returned to them measure for measure. And those who hoard it to themselves discover that that is not grace at all, and they live to regret it. Will they learn their lesson and be restored? That’s a story for another day.

If we read the parable as a story rather than as a threat.

Because, in the end, if the stories of Jesus that we read do not give that gospel message of God’s love for all of God’s children; if they don’t provoke in us a need to love God and to take loving care of one another, don’t you think, we might just be missing the point?

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Still

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

A word of caution:
Armistice: broken open
by poets of war.

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Year A Proper 27: Remembrance Day

Posted on November 9, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

The moral of the story that Jesus tells, the point of the parable is not “blink and you’ll miss it.” The kingdom of heaven is not a one-off, opportunity of a lifetime, miss it and you miss out, you should have gone before you came, too late now, blink and you’ll miss it special offer.

They were afraid that they’d missed it. That was the worry of the Thessalonians; that their loved ones had died too soon, fallen asleep, missed the great and terrible Day of the Lord, their justification and their joy. Even Paul thought that the second coming would happen in his lifetime. This was just the beginning of their understanding that this was just the beginning.

The point of the parable is not to shut the foolish bridesmaids out. That flies in the face of the story of Jesus, who welcomed prostitutes, tax collectors, ate with Pharisees and lepers, embraced Judas Iscariot and fed all of the foolish crowds who not only forgot to bring flasks of oil but something as basic as food for the journey. Jesus was not about exclusion, or locked doors. “Knock, and the door will be opened to you,” he told them; so this parable was about something else. And I think that it was about just that concern that bedeviled the Thessalonians: that this kingdom of heaven, this kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven, was taking, is taking longer than anyone expected.

Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour, and it may take awhile. But the bridegroom will come. He will come.

Ninety-six years ago on Tuesday, the treaty was signed which was to end the war that was to be the war to end all wars: so this should have been the end of war and the beginning of peace on earth. A century after the start of the Great War, we know that it was not an end, but only a beginning to modern warfare.

A century later, we have refined war to the point where the smallest atom creates the biggest fear, and remote detonations remove the danger of a crisis of conscience from the field of battle. At the same time, the sharp stroke of a simple blade severs our sense of civilization. We have come so far, and moved on so little from a century ago, when war was supposed to be ended by all-out war.

It seems that the kingdom of heaven, this kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven, is taking longer than anyone expected. A little longer before our swords are melted down for shovels, our spears for pruning hooks. A generation or two more before our nuclear weapons are recycled for clean energy, our drones reduced to traffic eyes in the sky.

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, to grieve as other do who have no hope.” Because we do not know the day nor the hour, but we do know that at the end of the story, the bridegroom comes, and a new day begins.

People have died for good and just cause, and others died for ill, and many died who shouldn’t have, and others survived and lived to tell the tale, or not, to their families, the grateful ones. More will die before war is done, but we are not to live as those without hope, but be awake to the signs of the kingdom, keep awake and keep the faith, so that we don’t drift away, lose hope, fall asleep.

A century ago, a war began which would kill over 16 million people. Four years later, ninety-six years ago on Tuesday, at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, it stopped. It was supposed to be the war to end all wars, but we let the pull of peace lull us back to sleep.

Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. We are in this for the long haul, we who await this kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.

All of the bridesmaids in the story fall asleep – both the foolish and the wise – and yet the one instruction Jesus gives at the end of the story is, “keep awake.”

The wisest of us falters; the foolish fall soundly. Each of us is exhorted to keep awake and keep in mind what it is we are waiting for, working for: God’s kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.

It always takes longer than we expect. The Thessalonians were just beginning to understand that the life of Jesus, the Resurrection, the Ascension were just the beginning. But they were, after all, a beginning.

Jesus told his disciples, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them.” Maybe the notion of a Second Coming is a misnomer: Jesus visits with us each and every day. How many times have you felt his presence, known that he has returned just when you needed him the most? The Incarnation was just the beginning of his life with us, among us, within us.

The key is to keep awake, to stay alert and vigilant, to keep the eyes of our hearts open for the signs all around us of the kingdom. The signs are all around us, in times of deepest joy, when a wedding happens, when a child is born, when the sun sets over the horizon or the moon shines full. The signs are with us in the times of deepest trial, in the dark night when the air is chill and the trenches are filled with fear, and at the eleventh hour men put pen to paper and hope to write war away forever. That hope is our sign; for we do not want you to grieve, says the apostle, as those who have no hope.

We see him coming in the hands of a child reaching out for the Bread of Life, knowing in a way deeper than words that God is with her. We see him reaching for the elderly veteran whose memories scramble for words, but for whom the words that Jesus taught us fall freely from his lips.

We see him coming in prayers answered, and in prayers held out in hope, day after day, knowing that we may be a long time waiting. If we stay awake, we will see him, we will know that he is coming.

It is no coincidence that we get into November, the eleventh month, and start looking toward Advent and our lectionary readings suddenly take on an urgent tinge: keep awake, for you do not know that day or the hour of the great and terrible Day of the Lord. We are looking toward Advent, which looks toward the Feast of the Incarnation, the birth into our world of Jesus, the Christ-child, God Incarnate, God with us. We are remembering, as the darkness falls, that light is coming, has come, continues to stream into the world, this world that God has made and loves and keeps awake and alive.

The kingdom of heaven is not a once in a lifetime, blink and you miss it, miss out opportunity. It is the gift of God growing in us, growing in our world, more slowly, perhaps, than we might expect, more deeply than we might recognize, but visible if we keep our eyes open, our hope alive, if we keep awake to the signs of the kingdom around us and within us.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

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Apostasies

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

from the bible challenge blog

God forgive us our
daily apostasies: the
taking of your name in vain,
faking faith, defrauding love;
the times we fail to
call on you at all;
the many ways in which
our worship turns in upon
ourselves, our souls, our bodies.
Turn us, tell us,
compel us for we
will not follow willingly
for long.

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Lasting

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

Is this how it was
for Adam and Eve:
old as time and
young as their memories;
innocence easily beguiled,
carrying still the
remnants of chaos,
shaken off to water the tree?
And see
who answers their
tapping on the ground.

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Parabolic

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

It is often said, but bears repeating, that we have a tendency to tame Jesus’ parables. Familiarity breeds, if not contempt, at least complacency. When we stop hearing them as stories, and instead hear only the interpretation and allegorization and reenactment and sheer boredom that we lay over them, we miss the essence of story, the essential ingredient of sheer absurdity, that Jesus brings to his idiosyncratic teaching.

Consider this Sunday’s parable: wise and foolish bridesmaids, all of whom drift off to sleep, some of whom stay with their lamps lit for the bridegroom, some of whom get anxious about their oil levels, leave, and miss the party. What if he had told it like this:

The kingdom of heaven will be like this: Two friends were watching Match of the Day on tv. At half time, the score was nil-nil, and they were both getting a little restless. During the break, they milled around, mumbling and moaning and stretching. One went to the loo. The other got a beer from the fridge in the next room. “Get me one,” said the one. “Get your own,” said the other, “the game’s about to restart.” So they both sat down, and fifteen minutes into the second half, the second friend said, “It’s no good, I’ve got to go,” and went into the bathroom. As soon as he turned the lock in the door, a cheer went up from the one on the sofa, who was jumping up and down on the furniture fit to break the springs – the one and only, winning goal of the match slipped past the keeper by a tantalizing hair, and thudded into the back of the net. By the time the friend returned, the replay was over and the match had resumed, but no more goals were scored: he had missed it.

There are many interpretations you may make of this parable: beer is bad for you (should have shared it with the friend); you should have gone before you sat down; the international rules of football (soccer to some) need to be changed to accommodate our desire for instant gratification in the form of more frequent goals; people with small bladders shouldn’t watch live sports events;

– they make about as much sense as the many interpretations that claim that the parable that Jesus told was a warning that the kingdom of heaven would be a blink-and-you-miss-it event, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the party, or be shut out forever.

The only instruction that Jesus gives out of this parable is to keep awake. But all of the bridesmaids fell asleep: the wise and the foolish.

Jesus, who promises at the end of this gospel, “I am with you always, to the end of the age,” is not, I think, about to hedge that promise with, “But you should have gone before you came.”

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All Saints 2014

Posted on November 2, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

Jesus clearly didn’t have the best agent. If he had titled his sermon on the mount, “How to live your best blessed life right now,” he could have gathered forty thousand on the hillside instead of four thousand. He could have funded thirty years of ministry from the collections taken up at one event alone, instead of petering out after three years, pretty much destitute, his treasurer so cash-starved that he would sell his soul for thirty pieces of silver. Being a prophet was rarely profitable, or popular. It did have a power of its own, and the incalculable advantage of speaking God’s truth. How much less profitable or popular, how much more powerful, then, the testimony of the Son of God?

The Beatitudes are so familiar, yet if we listen, we hear every time the crash and clatter of conventional wisdom being turned on its head, its contents rattling around, smashing and breaking as the container flips over. And yet we insist on flipping it back, putting the pieces back together: “How to live your best blessed life right now” is the sermon we want to hear. But the sermon on the mount is not a how-to guide to blessedness. The Beatitudes are not instructions for blessing, but a pronouncement by the Son of God himself that you, we are blessed. It is the blessing of Jesus delivered directly to his hearers, his followers, his disciples, his church. It is an assurance, that whatever things might look like in the kingdom of this world, where the meek are downtrodden and the peacemaker is a specific brand of deadly weapon; nevertheless, in the kingdom of God, blessings abound.

Actually, the peacemakers’ blessing is a pun in Jesus’ time, too. The Roman emperors considered themselves to be peacemakers – the famous Pax Romana was their particular brand of oppressive and suppressive peace, uniting the world under one ruler to rule out strife. Of course, the Jewish people, of whom Jesus was one, also had a vision of uniting the world under one ruler in an age of peace, only in their vision the ruler was not Caesar, son of the Roman gods, but the Lord God Almighty, father of all. And here is Jesus, the Son of God, assuring his countrymen that they are on the right track, that their hope is true, their faith justified: they are blessed in the eyes of God.

Those who lament the state of the world, the threat to the temple, the erosion of their daily freedoms and the pollution of their religious rituals; those who mourn for the days gone by when Zion stood like a shining city on a hill; they will be comforted to know that God has never left them, that their hope for God’s kingdom come is not in vain; that they were right not to compromise with the Roman rulers.

That message of reassurance is taken up by John in his vision of Revelation: the assurance to the early churches, in the midst of persecution, that God has not forsaken them, that their faith is not wrong, that their loved ones, even those martyred for their faith, are bright shining as the sun around the throne of God, basking in blessedness and lost in wonder and praise. They have been washed clean, pure as the driven snow, and now they see God.

One of the most transfixing and transformative pieces of commentary that I read about these Beatitudes was about the blessing of the pure in heart, those who will see God. The New Interpreter’s Bible commentary[i] advises that this purity of heart is not about avoiding impure thoughts (thank God!), but about single-mindedness of heart; single-heartedness, if you will. It is the heart that is totally dedicated to God that is undiluted by other idols, that is unsullied by other demands, that is undivided in its loyalty: that is the pure heart. I remember last week’s commandment, to love the Lord your God with your all: all your heart, soul, mind, and might. It is that soul that will see God.

So the martyrs purified themselves in the fire of passion for Christ; but for most of us, the purification is not one that we will but one into which God draws us, piece by piece. Sometimes the love of God, in either direction, is glorious, and sometimes it is a dogged act of persistence; but it endures, and it will, in the end, become so all-encompassing that all impurity is driven out, and we shall see God.

Jesus addresses a community chosen by God yet oppressed by humanity; he calls them blessed. We may claim the same blessedness for ourselves, if only we are poor enough in spirit, destitute in our egos, that love for God fills up our souls and purifies our hearts, so that we are meek enough to recognize the blessings of God for what they are and what they owe to God: our very lives, our families, this good green earth.

Those who are broken in spirit and impoverished in arrogance may lean on God for comfort when the whole world seems to be going to hell, because they are the ones who know that it is only God who can save them, and that God will not let them down. This is not “your best blessed life now,” but the promise that whatever the world has to offer, God will redeem us out of it, and show us true blessings, in the age to come, in God’s kingdom come.

Jesus did not promise those on the hillside instant riches, freedom from Rome, health, wealth and happiness. He promised them the blessing of God, the assurance that their times were in God’s hands, that the God who numbered the sparrows held them in high value, loved them. Jesus promises us the same: not that life will always be easy, nor without pain. But he promises that we are blessed by God, known and loved and held by God, and that at the last, pure and whole and reunited with those dressed in white around the throne, the ones we name today and the ones known to God alone, we will see God.

[i] The New Interpreter’s Bible: General Articles & Introduction, Commentary, & Reflections for Each Book of the Bible, Volume VIII: New Testament Articles, Matthew, Mark (Abingdon Press, 1994), 179

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For the love of God

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

Audio from this morning’s sermon

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Year A Proper 25: For the love of God

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

This post has been updated to reflect the version preached at the Church of the Epiphany, Euclid, Ohio, October 26th.

Which commandment is the greatest? they asked. It is not, in fact, a difficult question. How else can you even imagine Jesus answering? The first commandment is based in the simple statement delivered through Moses: “I am the Lord your God. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.” (Deuteronomy 5:6-7) Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your mind and there will be no room for other gods.

Moses goes on to interpret the Law to the people:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

The first commandment, the greatest commandment, can be a little hard to grasp. Literally. We can’t grasp God. We can’t wrap our arms around God, we can’t even wrap our heads around God; how, then, are we to wrap our hearts, our souls, our strength around God?

Yet God, in all love, commands nothing less.  You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, and all your soul, and all your mind.

How often do we really find ourselves just loving God? We spend a whole lot of time and energy and prayer breath blaming God and berating God, bargaining and bartering with God. We can get up a whole head of steam second-guessing God and stressing over God. How often do we give God the benefit of the doubt, let God be God, and let the love flow?

Barbara Brown Taylor describes, at the end of the day, giving God a peck on the cheek, while she was “drying up inside for want of making love.”[i]

That’s why it starts with loving God; because a loving God, the God who loves us knows that without that loving relationship, we are lost, adrift, alone.

Love that isn’t fed fades.

The first and the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of your heart and soul, your mind and strength. And the second is like it. The second is like loving God. Loving our neighbour is like loving God because each of them, all of them, whether we like them or not, is made in the image of God.

That’s why loving God comes first. Because if we’re stuck on blaming and bargaining, berating and bartering, second-guessing and stressing over God, we will do the same to one another, those ones made in the image of God, the ones we can see, and wrap our arms around, or push away; wrap our hearts around, or freeze out.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “You have never talked to a mere mortal… It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”[ii] It is through loving the holy, living, immortal God that we learn how to love our holy, living, immortal neighbour. The danger of neglecting the first commandment is that we forget to love our neighbours and ourselves.

Martin Luther, in his Small Catechism, began every interpretation of each of the Ten Commandments with, “We should fear and love God [so] that…” So the fifth commandment: “Thou shalt not kill. What does this mean?” asks the catechumen. “We should fear and love God that we may not hurt nor harm our neighbour in his body, but help and befriend him in every bodily need.”[iii] For the love of God, we should not hurt or harm but befriend our neighbour, that one made in the image of God.

And that should be the end of it. Love one another, for the love of God. Except for this:

We need to make room in our lives for loving God, or else the space will be filled with everything else that should come second, even with things that should come last: we need to make room in our lives to love God first. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind: there should be no room for other gods.

Jesus tells his disciples elsewhere, regarding children, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of stumbling blocks!” (Matthew 18:5-7)

We are failing our children, we are causing them to stumble and fall. We are causing them to stumble and fall through our addiction to violence and our idolatry of weaponry, laying our fear of God on our guns, the things that should come last coming too often first to hand.

I am sick of preaching Sundays after school shootings; that shouldn’t even be a turn of phrase, but it is all too familiar. SWAT teams practice “active shooter” drills in our school buildings over the vacations. Every school has a plan in place. I don’t know a single teenager who hasn’t heard threats to their school, their community. I don’t know a teacher who hasn’t wondered what they would do.

The boy who ended up on the wrong end of that gun on Friday, who killed one, hurt others, dealt incalculable harm to his community, and then killed himself; so much grief: he, and his victims, and their loved ones, and their teachers and helpers all bore, all bear the image of God. And now, that image has been bloodied once more.

Whoever places a stumbling block before a child, it would be better for him to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Our idolatry of readily available weaponry is, our love of guns is, I am afraid, the stumbling block we set in the paths of our children. For the love of God, we need to do better. Whether through self-regulation or legislation, we need to do better. For the love of God.

“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 neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

Loving God can be as easy as breathing, for, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.” Loving God can be as easy as letting the Spirit breathe for us.

Loving God can be as hard as holding the hand of grief, as forgiving the one who hurts and harms; as tricky as loving ourselves and our neighbours, those made in the image of God, and doing something about it, something to keep the blood from staining those images. It can be hard. But for the love of God, remembering whose image we bear, who loves us and forgives us all, we have to try.

I found this prayer by Malcolm Boyd, to which I’ve made a few personal additions:

  • God:
  • Take fire and burn away our guilt and our lying hypocrises.
  • Take water and wash away our brothers’ [and our sisters’] blood which we have caused to be shed.
  • Take hot sunlight and dry the tears of those we have hurt, and heal their wounded souls, minds, and bodies.
  • Take love and root it in our hearts, so that brotherhood [and sisterhood] may grow, transforming the dry desert of our prejudices and hatreds.
  • Take our imperfect prayers and purify them, so that we mean what we pray and are prepared to give ourselves to you along with our words, through Jesus Christ, who did not disdain to take our humanness upon him and live among us, sharing our life, our joys, and our pains. [for loving hearts are broken until they rest in you*] [iv]

 

[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: a memoir of faith (HarperCollins, 2006), 99

[ii] C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (HarperCollins edn, 2001), 46

[iii] Luther’s Small Catechism, annotated by Edward W. A. Koehler (Concordia Publishing House, 1971), 75

[iv] “Prayer of repentance” from Are You Running With Me, Jesus? – Prayers by Malcolm Boyd (Avon Books, 1965), 138 [with the preacher’s additions] *after St Augustine

 

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Year A Proper 24: the stewardship sermon

Posted on October 19, 2014 by Rosalind C Hughes

The question about taxes, and rendering unto Caesar, led into a sermon with time for pew-talk. The outline / framework went something like this:

Jesus does a really nice politician’s job of handing the question back to the Pharisees and the Herodians and asking them, “What do you think? Where do your priorities lie? What do you think of Caesar? What do you Herodians think of the puppet kingdom of Judea? Where do you think God is in all of this, and just how do you reconcile it all?”

Because whether or not Caesar’s head is on the coin, all things come of God. Even Caesar bears the image of God, when you think about it.

Jesus invites his inquisitors to think more deeply about their own relationship with money, power, and the economy of Creation.

We’re going to do a bit of the same this morning. I’m going to ask you to reflect on your relationship with money, its power, and the economy of grace. First, I’m going to tell you a personal story about how I relate to taxes.

My Granny Lyle lived and died in her little council house in the northeast of England. She left school at fourteen and went “into service” in the local doctor’s house – think the little maids in Downton Abbey or Upstairs Downstairs, on a much smaller scale. Once she married, of course, she had to move out and in with her husband, a working man in the local industry. They raised two children, and she was widowed the minute the younger married and moved out herself. I knew Granny Lyle only as a widow, living in her government-provided house, on her widow’s pension, with her little dog and her budgerigar. As she aged, she became less and less able to breathe: “Puffing Billy,” she called herself. When she died, she left her funeral paid for, and fifty pounds for each of her four grandchildren, her life savings. My father and uncle burned her few sticks of furniture out in the back yard – there was nothing worth keeping – and the dog went to live with a neighbour.

When I paid my taxes and my rates, I knew that Granny Lyle could pay her heating bill, receive free hospital care, feed the dog. Such stories, for good or ill, are what form our attitude to the way in which money supports us in our communal life. Of course, I have the advantage of having lived only in democratic societies where I have at least some mechanism for influencing the way in which my taxes are spent – the vote – but I also have a vivid and affectionate picture of how one who raised me up can be sustained by my turnabout.

So much for Caesar. What about rendering unto God that which belongs to God?

Of course, the short answer to what belongs to God is everything, even Caesar; so again, Jesus is inviting his audience to think a little more deeply, consider their relationship to God, and to “everything.”

This is where it gets a little squirrelly in churches, especially around stewardship time. Because we know that the church is not God, and rendering unto the church does not necessarily equate rendering unto God; in fact, paying for Granny Lyle’s council house in the name of neighbourly love may be just as good and godly a thing as signing a pledge card. Still, the church is one mechanism for returning our gifts to God in worship, in community outreach, and in the hope of a future that brings heaven a little closer to earth.

I’m going to tell you an even more personal story, which explains a little of how I relate to the church.

When I was born, and my mother and I left the hospital for the first time, I was given into the arms of a social worker from the Church of England Children’s Society, who took me to a foster family, and it was that agency which, over the next weeks and months, arranged my adoption by another family, who gave me my name and the history that I have now. [By the way, they were also marvellous to both my birth mother and me when they helped us to reconnect, happily and affectionately, twenty-nine years later. We keep in touch with a lot of help from facebook!]

Again, our stories guide our giving, our receiving, our understanding of what is mine, what is yours, what is ours, what is God’s.

I invite you specifically in your prayer this week to consider the stories that you were told or that you have told yourself about money: to give thanks where you can; to ask forgiveness if it is needed; to request guidance or comfort if it’s all just too confusing.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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