Month: October 2017

Matthew 22:15-22    

Lectionary 29 ~ 20^th Sunday after Pentecost

They weren’t even friends!  The Pharisees and the Herodians couldn’t even agree on paying taxes! The Pharisees wanted to maintain separation from the Roman government, while the Herodians sought to collaborate with them.  It is said that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  So the Pharisees and the Herodians came together to concoct a plan to discredit Jesus.

Showing Jesus a coin, they asked, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” Looking at the coin used to pay the taxes, Jesus asked, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” Of course, it was the emperor’s.   “Give the emperor things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s,” Jesus instructed.  Jesus knew their hearts.  He knew that there was malice in their question.  Their question was legalistic, just like their hearts.

God’s heart isn’t like that.  When Jesus said to give to God the things that are God’s, what the Pharisees and the Herodians did not realize is that everything is God’s.  All that we have is because God is generous.  Scripture tells us about God’s generosity and abundance right from the beginning.  God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.  Calculations place the number of stars at 70 thousand million, million, million.   As many as this number of stars are the number of H2O molecule in just 10 drops of water. There are 1.4 billion cubic kilometers of water in our world. Those oceans, lakes and rivers are bordered 7 quintillion 5 hundred quadrillion grains of sand. Scientists calculate the existence of 370,000 species of flowering plants, and 30 million different species of animals. The average cat has about 40 million hairs, 30 million of which will end up on your furniture.  God’s generous abundance is revealed in the 5,140 trillion tons of air in our atmosphere.[1]

You may think some people are full of more hot air than others, but try this:  Breathe in a bit and hold it.  Breathe in some more, still holding your breath in.  Breathe in again.  Hold it.  Now let your breath out.  Feeling better now?  Taking in the air God gives us is wonderful.  But don’t you feel good when you give some back out into the world and stop holding it all?

We need to give away some of what we have been given. The in and out of breathing echoes the rhythm of life. Like breathing in and out, both receiving and are giving are necessary for wholeness.  Our breathing, and our receiving and our giving are holy matters.  (As a side note, for all of you who are wonderful at cooking meals for people in need, or building ramps to enable access, or any of the thousands of other things we do to help others, but won’t let others help you, know that you are denying someone else similar pleasure you get in giving and doing for others.)

Breathing in, and breathing out.  Like the waves of the ocean scrambling for the shore, and then pulling back, again and again and again. Like the sun coming up in the morning, and setting every night.  That’s part of God’s generosity today, and tomorrow, and the next.  Every day, over and over, without end.

Sometimes I forget how generous God really is, but then I come to worship.  I hear about the kingdom of heaven being like a treasure in a field, and like a pearl of great value.  I hear the story of Jesus feeding thousands upon thousands of people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, and healing people regardless of age, or gender, or race, or economic situation, or political affiliation.  I hear about Jesus extending God’s love and forgiveness to those whom society has condemned.  He broke social, religious and political norms enacting God’s generous love, and he was killed for it.

From the cross, Jesus said, “Father, forgive them.”  When we come to the Lord’s table, where Jesus is present in, under and through the bread and the wine, God’s love and forgiveness become a part of us. We are filled, like breathing in again and again. Breathe in so deeply that the abundance of God’s love and forgiveness poured out in Jesus pours out of us.

We are here in this community to hear, and see and taste and touch God’s love because of those who came before us and those among us.  Our community here has been built through generosity and gratitude. From the bricks in these walls to the to the finely tuned organ rejoicing through Karen’s gifts, it is through our gifts of ministry and money that we reflect God’s generosity.  Our calendars and our checkbooks bear witness to our gratitude for the gifts God has given us.

Through your generosity, we are able to respond to God’s call, and become part of God’s on-going story. With grace and abundance, we can shower those who will live in houses built through Habitat for Humanity. We provide hot meals to those with no permanent home, help with education costs for young people in Tanzania, and buy a tank of gas for a single mom whose work hours have been slashed in half.  We are able to provide space for families of the mentally ill and to those suffering from addiction and to their families so that they can learn and support one another through challenging times. These ministries, and more, require working heat, and roof that doesn’t leak, clean restrooms and someone to keep track of who is where and when.  We have come together to learn about our relationship with brothers and sisters in the Catholic faith.  It takes computers and paper and people to make that happen.

Thank you for your generosity.  Thank you for breathing in God’s love so deeply that when you let it out God’s love spreads among us here, and flows out in our community, and even around the world.

Today is Stewardship Sunday. Take a deep breath, and prayerfully consider how you will respond from your heart to God’s generosity in this coming year. As we read this morning in St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] http://www.sciencealert.com/how-much-water-and-air-sustains-the-earth

 

 Matthew 21:33-46

Lectionary 27 ~ 18^th Sunday after Pentecost

Through knocked-out windows on the 32^nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Stephen Paddock shot into a crowd of 22,000 concert goers.  It was only a week ago, on a Sunday night, that Paddock committed the deadliest mass shootings in the United States.  After putting what is known as a “bump fire stock” on his semi-automatic rifles so that they would shoot 9 rounds per second, 59 people were killed, and over 500 more were left injured. At least a dozen of the 23 firearms recovered were semiautomatic rifles legally modified to fire as automatic weapons.

While we count the number of dead, those who were shot are more than statistics. Steve, a 44-year-old financial advisor, husband, and father, was among those killed.  He was in Las Vegas to celebrate his birthday.  There was Michelle, who was the youngest of four siblings.  She loved to cheer for the Golden State Warriors.  Father and husband Christopher, a 28-year-old Navy veteran who handled dogs that searched for explosives, was the kind of person you could call in the middle of the night for help.  He was also killed in the rampage.[2] Fifty-six more men and women, who had people who loved them, died.

Our minds draw back to the mass shootings at The Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.  C. S. Lewis says that grief accumulates.  May we not become so accustomed to acts of violence, be they shootings, domestic abuse, or violent crimes, that we fail to express our outrage and silence our lament.

You are not to kill, God tells us.  This is the fifth commandment.  Luther interprets this broadly.  He explains in the Large Catechism:

We must not kill, either by hand, heart, or word, by signs or gestures, or by aiding and abetting….The occasion and need for this commandment is that, as God well knows, the world is evil and this life is full of misery.  …We must live among many people who do us harm.[3]

There was a rich farmer who planted a vineyard.  Leaving behind farmhands to care and nurture the soil, and the vines, and the grapes, the owner went on a trip.  He sent someone to collect his profits, but the tenants beat him up.  The owner sent someone else, and the workers murdered that person.  Then they stoned the next.  Again and again this happened until the farmer sent his very own son.  “They will respect my son,” he thought, he hoped. But the tenants believed that they would get the inheritance that was due the son if the son were dead.  So they killed him, too.

After Jesus told this story, the religious leaders wanted to arrest him right then and there, but they feared the crowds, so they waited.  They ended up not only arresting Jesus.  They killed him.

In Jesus’ parable, the landowner expects the best from the tenants, over and over again, giving second chances, third chances, even fourth chances to do what is right.  Lord knows we need that many. As Luther expresses in his explanation of the fifth commandment, we kill “by hand, heart, or word, by signs or gestures, or by aiding and abetting.”  After we murdered Jesus, God did something only God can do.  God brought life out of death.  Jesus’ grave was empty.  On the third day, God raised him from the dead.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.[4]

God does not respond to violence with violence. God takes the consequences of violence in our world, and changes it.  God responds to death with life.  In the cross of Jesus, God does not respond to the worst we have to offer with vengeance.  God does not respond to violence with more violence.  God responds with light that overcomes darkness, love that overcomes hate, and   life that overcomes death.  Out of violence, Jesus brings peace.

Frederick Buechner writes:

The peace that Jesus offers…is a peace beyond the reach of the tragic and terrible.  It is a profound and inward peace that sees with unflinching clarity the tragic and terrible things that are happening and yet is not shattered by them.  It is a peace that looks out at the friends, whom he loves enough to be concerned for their troubled hearts than he is for his own, and yet his love for his friends is no more where his peace comes from than his impending torture and death are where his peace will be destroyed.  The place that his peace comes from is not the world but something whole and holy within himself, which sees the world also as whole and holy because deep beneath all the broken and unholy things that are happening in it, even as he speaks, Jesus sees what he calls the kingdom of God….To be whole is to see the world like that, as Jesus saw it…Sometimes even in the midst of our confused and broken relationships with ourselves, with each other, with God, we catch glimpses of that holiness and wholeness that is not ours by a long shot and yet is part of who we are.[5] 

How do we move and live in these days of all kinds of violence from all kinds of motives? Hold fast to each other, like sea otters.  A mother sea otter holds hands with her baby so that while they are sleeping, they don’t drift away from each other into dangerous waters.  Work for justice, and be instruments of peace. Remember Luther’s thoughts, expanding even more his explanation of the fifth commandment, You shall not kill:

It is God’s real intention that we should allow no one to suffer harm but show every kindness and love.  And this kindness…is directed especially toward our enemies.[6]

Come together around the table, Christ’s body and blood, to experience again unity and hope, and catch glimpses of wholeness and holiness.  Be open to God’s love that can transform.

We walk in the light of the God who creates our world and give us life. Carry the light of the one who lived and died and rose again into the darkness.  Hold onto the one who reconciles and heals, so that, even in the midst of our anger and grief, we can go forward with God’s comfort and hope, praying to God, Your kingdom come.

~Pastor Cheryl Ann Griffin

[1] My title was taken from an article by Frederick Buechner.  http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057369304900402?journalCode=ttja.

[2] http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-shooting-victims/index.html

[3] Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy, eds.  The Book of Concord.  Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2000.  410-413.

[4] Matthew 5:4.

[5] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/004057369304900402?journalCode=ttja.

[6] Kolb, Robert and Wengert, Timothy, eds.  The Book of Concord.  Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2000.  410-413.