Author: John Langenstein

Stay Awake – Lectionary 11/08/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 25: 1-13

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps.

The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Sermon Text

            Weddings are a time for celebration. In the ancient world, the bringing together of families meant many things. It meant that heirs would be born, that business could be conducted. It meant that a feast would be held and that the community could eat and that distant relatives could gather to share news. The festivities would have involved the entire village, sometimes an entire tribe. Marriage, then as it is now, was not a small matter.

            No wonder that scripture, especially the New Testament but many of the prophets, used the language of marriage to describe how things were in the world. God was often described as the husband of the faithful. Israel, Judah, the Church – all are variously described as God’s wife. The covenant of marriage, after all, is perhaps one of the closest parallels a person can have to their relationship with God. Marriage, though not a sacrament in the Methodist Church, teaches us as much about God as the Eucharist or Baptism.

            The image that our scripture for today gives us stands out, because whereas most of the marriage imagery in scripture puts God in the position of husband, and the Church in the position of bride, this parable puts forward that God is indeed the groom of a wedding, but that the expectant Church is best described as bridesmaids. A strange shift to be sure! How can the beloved of God, those Covenant partners bound to God throughout eternity, how can they now be relegated to the position of bridesmaids?

            We cannot approach this scripture and assume that Jesus was using the image of a groom in the same way he does elsewhere. To do so would be to miss the exact reason why Jesus is shifting the language away from the Church as bride to the church as Bridesmaid. We must accept that Jesus has changed the terms and discern why such a change might occur.

            The role of bridesmaids in the ancient world differed depending on the culture they inhabited. We all have heard stories of how, in ancient Europe, bridesmaids dressed identically to the bride, ensuring that if anyone tried to kidnap the bride before the wedding, they were less likely to succeed. Some others put forward that the original purpose of these members of the wedding party was to do exactly as their name suggests. That their duty was to be a, “maid,” to the bride and serve her the day of the wedding and beyond.

            Yet, in the first century the role of bridesmaid appeared to be mostly ceremonial. Though we do not have huge amounts of information directing us to the exact role of these women in Jesus’ era we do know that there were several universal features of Jewish weddings in the ancient world. among these were vows made under a canopy, the exchange of rings, singing and dancing, and a procession of light.[1]

            Depending on where a person lived, this procession might take different forms. Sometimes the poor would lead the groom to the ceremony in exchange for money, sometimes a single person carrying a lamp on a pole, but in Judea the custom was for a group of women to carry torches or lamps. These women served as the escort for the husband to the bride and they carried their light proudly. They were unmarried women seemingly representing the life that the bride was leaving behind and bringing with them the catalyst to begin her new life, namely her husband. The procession carried these torches and lamps, and sometimes even danced with them.

            The role that these women served, the light to guide the groom to the bride, was completely ceremonial in many respects. The groom knew where the bride was. Even if it was dark, it would not be unreasonable for him to bring his own lamp or bring someone along to carry one for him. No, the point of the lamp bearers was not to illumine the path of the groom, but to walk alongside him. They were signs of his authenticity, heralds to his coming. They walked alongside, and ahead of the groom, so everyone knew that a feast was about to begin.

            The image we are given in our scripture of attendants waiting for the groom to arrive was evidently common among Jewish weddings of Jesus’ time. The “Bride Price,” a financial display by the husband to demonstrate his seriousness about the marriage he was entering, was haggled over before the wedding took place. The idea was that the longer the discussions went on, the more invested the two parties involved must have been. Because of this, it benefited a man to drag out discussions as long as possible, to show how serious he really was.[2]

            The attendants should not have been blindsided by his tardiness, several of them were prepared for it in fact, bringing oil to light the lamp – not just for the time they would be walking to the feast – but also for the time they would be waiting. Others were not so prepared, they carried only enough oil to walk down the proverbial aisle. When they woke up from their nap, they found that they had burnt it all up waiting for the groom to arrive. They were forced to go off and try and buy more. When they returned, they found that the feast had begun, and they had missed out on their chance to participate. A sad end to a complicated little story, but one that tells us a great deal about our own life in the faith.

            Having looked at the story, let us peel back the images it gives us and do some interpretation. If we know that the groom is Jesus, then we know that we have been waiting for a long time. Two thousand years, the church has anticipated the return of Christ to set the world right. Across the New Testament we see figures like Paul begin to understand the wait they would have to endure – changing from speaking of Christ’s return as an immediate reality to something a little ways off. We as the Church have been waiting and we have fallen asleep from time to time in the process, maybe even let our torches run out of oil.

            By fall asleep, I mean that we have become complacent in our view of the world around us. We become content to sit and not seek out anything challenging or different. We sit and we wait, and doze off, and the world turn around us. However, inevitably something goes wrong. The world shutters to a stop and we are thrown from our cushy place into danger. That sudden change from comfort to discomfort, from normalcy to challenge, that defines our faith.

            To build from our parable, the oil that we keep is our preparedness for God to arrive in our life. Jesus does not condemn the women for sleeping, because even those who enter into the feast fell asleep. Jesus does condemn them for not being prepared for the groom’s arrival. When God shows up in our life, we have to be ready. This is not just an eschatological vision for the end of time, but a present concern. When someone knocks on our door who needs food or gas money, Christ has shown up. When our loved one is hurting or sick, Christ has shown up. Anytime a need is made known to us, Christ has arrived. Even if that need is within our own heart, even if it takes the form of our own pain.

            When we are jolted awake in those moments, we need to be ready to do something about the situation we find ourselves in. We must have developed skills through our time of peace to let us face the hardship before us. Sometimes those skills are practical, the ability to discern how and when and where to give or how to get resources that we need. Other times it is interpersonal, how to listen and encourage and build up. Still other times it is a spiritual skill, to pray, to hope, to intercede, even just to have faith.

            We are not always at the top of our game. That is just a reality of life, but even a person who has fallen asleep can run from a fire when they hear the alarm. In our life, moments will spring upon us where we must act, and when they do, it is good to be prepared for them. We must anticipate the times in our life when we are lost or hurting, or meet someone who is, and we need to know how to act in that moment.

            Many criticize the maids who did have oil for refusing to share with those who did not have any. If this was not a parable, I would be inclined to agree. However, you cannot share preparedness, not the sort that comes from within us. We can share material goods, money, even time – but we cannot share a mindset. We cannot care on behalf of other people. We cannot be people who think that something could never happen, we must be people who earnestly prepare ourselves to meet God wherever God appears.

            Perhaps though, something could have been done to let the ill prepared women join in the feast as well.a If they had not lit their lamps quite so soon, knowing that they were tired and had some time to wait. If they had sat by their fellow maidens, and simply let their light shine on them for a moment, would the story have been different? When we find ourselves unprepared for a sudden rush of trouble, or the appearance of someone in need, we cannot loan one another an ounce of precaution. But I wonder, if we know we are not yet prepared, if we are still growing into our responsibilities as people of the faith, could we at least share the light?

            Perhaps, even as we talk about our inability to share preparedness, we can talk about our need to look out for one another. To see when our friend does not have enough within them in a moment to do all that they would like to or need to. Perhaps we can shelter them, even just a little bit. And perhaps, those of us who are in need, who are sitting in the dark because we just don’t have it all together, maybe we could let them help us.

 Because, if the maids, all gathered there, had stayed awake, then they might have seen they did not have enough fuel. If they were aware of themselves and one another, maybe they could have shared the lamplight until the groom came, and the procession began. Sometimes we may doze off as members of the Church, but perhaps we should stay more alert, we should stay awake. If we really care for one another, if we really want to see us all make it to the wedding feast at the end of history, then we have to look out for one another. Because sometimes Christ appears as the beggar at the door or in the sick person in a bed, but I believe sometimes Christ appears to us in a tired believer, just looking for a light to see them through the night.

Stay awake, dear siblings, share the light of God with one another, and gird yourself so that you never find yourself unprepared when Christ arrives unexpectedly. – Amen.

[1] Cyrus Adler & M. Grunwald. “Marriage Ceremonies,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia Available at: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10434-marriage-ceremonies

[2] Ben Witherington III. “The Final Discourse – Apocalypse Then.” In Matthew (Macon Georgia: Smyth & Helwys. 2006) 459

Hold onto Hope – Lectionary 11/01/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

The Epistle Lesson                                                                                 1 John 3:1-3

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

The New Testament Lesson                                            Revelation 7: 9-17

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Sermon Text

We live our life in the shadow. The light of the sun, the light of our humming electricity, all of this is just a twinkle. We look out on a world that is only a semblance of what it could be. Even the most bright and beautiful flower appears to us like a reflection in polished brass. A pall hangs over the creation, a diminution of the potential which it holds. We live our lives, full of joy and sorrow and all manner of emotions with only an inkling of what we truly could experience.

Creation, the good gift of God created long ago, suffers under the burden of its own brokenness. Death, pain, suffering, all manner of hardships – these are all symptomatic of something gone wrong. We are given in scripture, in its opening and closing chapters, as well as in parable and prophecy throughout both testaments, a dream of something else. A world where pain does not exist, where death is an impossibility, where God and humanity are not separated from one another, but live side-by-side in harmony with one another.

Any attempt to imagine such a world usually falls short. Even in our understanding of Heaven as expressed in scripture, we are forced to use finite terms to discuss something infinitely more complex than earth could ever allow for. We see precious metals and stones, we see gates and roads and walls, we conceive of the kingdom of God that will be in terms of palatial estates and material wealth. We conceive in grand terms, what can also simply be described as a garden, watered by God, and cared for by its inhabitants. A place of peace, of security, and which enjoys love in its unadulterated and freely given immensity.

All Saints Day is the day where we look around us and try and pierce the veil that hangs over us. Every Sunday is a little Easter, a moment when we remember the resurrection and find ourselves transformed. Every time we take of Communion we participate in the feast of the Lamb at the end of history, and in the Passion of the Christ long ago. Yet, today, All Saints Day, we look upward and ask God to show us a greater glimpse of what is to come.

We who are gathered here, we who live in the chaos of a broken world. We know that we are not yet in Heaven. There is no doubt, even in our brightest moments, that there is something greater that awaits us than this present existence. A rejuvenation of the world which has been drained again and again of its vitality. The moment when what is and what could be are no longer separated. When Heaven and Earth are united forever and ever, and the moment when God is no longer an invisible presence, but the light that illumines all things.

We are not alone in awaiting this reunion. All those who we have loved, and those we never had a chance to love. All those who have gone on to meet Christ ahead of us, they too live in anticipation of the day when all is settled, the day when peace returns to the universe for the first time. All our friends, all our family, even a great deal of our enemies – all who have cast themselves on the love of God – they wait for the day when the divide between the worlds drops away and all is as it should be.

The book of Revelation, esoteric and historically bound as it sometimes is, gives us several visions of what the World to Come is like. The blessed communion of the Saints, those who live with God presently, is envisioned as a great assembly clad in white. They are people from all nations, all tribes, men and women who have faced the hardships of life and come out the other side into God’s presence. They make up the bulk of the company of heaven, those who lived life, those who died, those who have been redeemed by the love of God and await the resurrection that is to come. They sing, they praise God, and they continue to love one another, to love we who are left behind, they continue to live and thrive beyond our sight.

Gathering together to worship, wherever it happens and however it happens, unites us with those who presently do so before the throne of God. When we pray for one another, we do so with the full company of the redeemed. When we praise God, we do so with choirs of believers both living and dead, and all the hosts of Heaven beside them. The love which we have for one another, the community which has begun here on Earth, can never be broken off – not even by the vicious hands of death.

Yet, we are here, and we mourn. Our recollection of our loved ones – the empty places they once inhabited – we cannot see them and pretend that we are not heartbroken to have them away from us. We, limited creatures that we are, depend on our senses to discern the world around us. Without seeing the face of our loved ones, without feeling their touch, without the sound of their voice, we are less than what we once were. John Donne, reflecting on the ringing of a church bell for a funeral, said it this way, “Each [person]’s death diminishes me, For I am involved in [hu]mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

We live in a world caught between two realities. What could be and what is. We have no means of really discerning what Heaven on Earth could look like. Our only way of seeing it is in the moments when we draw near to God, and when God draws near to us. In the deepest moments of our private prayers. In the taking of the bread and the cup. In the sad tones of our absent love one’s favorite song. In those moments, something can break through and reach out to us. We experience God, as close as out next breath, closer even than the space between one atom and another with our flesh.

The Incarnation was God’s grand gesture of outreach to us. In it humanity and Godhood could never be separated from one another. The Eternal Word of God, uniquely begotten of the Father, conceived of flesh through the power of the Holy Spirit. Heaven and Earth, together, inseparable. A foretaste of what we all might one day see played out across all of Creation. We take up bread and cup, we drink deep of the grace of God which is offered to us in this miraculous visitation. We celebrate a God who has bent Heaven itself down to bring us aid.

As we prepare ourselves to take of this blessing from God. As we lift our worries to our Redeemer and Sustainer. We should also begin to think in our hearts of those who have gone from us. Those who we know see Christ, not through obstructed as we currently do, but face to face – panim el panim. Those who loved us and who we loved, who now know the embrace of a God who keeps them from all pain and has wiped the tears from their eyes. Those who enjoy a world of bliss and peace with their Creator.

Remember them today, and let their memory inspire us to live our lives fully now. With the knowledge that they stand before God today we can draw strength that we too will someday do the same. All that we shared with them, the good times and the bad, are shining and redeemed as we can only begin to imagine now. The fragile flame of their legacy, it is in our hands now, it burns furtively in our hearts. Keep the flame lit, let us continue to make our love ones who have gone to Glory proud through our conduct, through our love of one another, our love for them.

And in the darkest moments when the shadows we inhabit seem to overtake us. When we do not seek out the light, because even it seems to mock our pain. When we lock ourselves behind the doors of our guilt, of our sorrow, of our pain. Let us hold out our hand and take a risk. Let us Hold onto Hope – the most elusive of gifts. Hope that trusts that God will reveal what we are to be. Hope that we will be reunited one day with the full company of Heaven. Hope that the long night will end, and that when the dawn comes, we will find ourselves in good company. And let our hope inspire us to pray continually for Christ to deliver us from our present condition. “Come, Lord Jesus, come.” – Amen.

The Greatest Commandment – Lectionary 10/25/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 22:34-39

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

Sermon Text

            Next week we celebrate All Saint’s Day, the day when we remember all those who have gone before us to glory. A day when, if not in actuality, then in our awareness, we can see the glory of heaven just a little bit closer to us. It is a celebration of the promise of God to be with us throughout all eternity. All Saint’s Day waits for us, just a few scant days away, to give us hope in the resurrection and in the present bliss that is given to all Saints who have left us.

            The celebration of All Saint’s Day next week is a fixed point in our calendar, but equally fixed is what will transpire just two days later. “The Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November,” marks the day of our National Elections in the United States. This year, there seems to be an urgency in the air about an election. In a year of plague and disaster, unrest, and unrighteousness, in a year that will no doubt go down in history as the defining moment of a generation. The toll of the bells, the passing of each hour as we approach this day, ring out in silence and pulls at our hearts to give us all pause. There is an anxiety that is thoroughly thought of, and is sometimes voiced, something feels different this year.

            As this is our last Sunday before the election which is not already devoted to a specific celebration, I thought it apt for us to look to scripture and see what we wisdom it can give us about our present situation. I preface this meditation by saying that this journey into the scripture to find wisdom will not, and is not intended to be, and endorsement of anything but that same scripture, of the God who illumined its writing, and of the faithful people who depend upon it. God has wisdom for every moment of our life and the more that a situation brings us to an uncertain place, the more completely we must cling to the teachings of God that are offered to us. So, anxious people of God, let us come to the scripture, to the well of God’s grace, and pull life out of the deep waters, the waters that are deeper than creation itself.

            Our scripture tells us about one of several moments in which someone comes and asks a question of Jesus. The question is not asked in earnest in Matthew’s telling of this story but is meant as a trap to catch Jesus in a lie. It is the sort of thing we are accustomed to in our modern world, but we should not think that this is anything new. The “Gotcha,” question is as old as humanity itself, from the moment that Cain asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Jesus’ opposition asks a simple question, “Which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

            The scandal of such a question can sometimes be lost to us in our Christian circles, but we must look at what this question would mean to a Jew in Jesus’ context. There were two major parties in Judaism at the time – The Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were Biblical purists, reading only the Torah – that is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The Pharisees were more expansive – they believed in the authority of the prophets, in the teachings of ministers and sages throughout history. The two parties were highly divided, one was in charge of the Temple – the unyielding Sadducees – and the other led the people and taught them God’s word – the searching Pharisees.

            The one thing that these two groups agreed on was the Torah, the bedrock of Judaism. In the Torah were all the good teachings of God. It not only numbered 613 strictures for the people to live their life by but told their story. The story of how God took a normal man in Babylon and made him the father of a nation. The story of how that nation came to live in Egypt, to become enslaved. How God lifted that nation out from under the hands of oppression and freed them to take hold of God’s promises. The Torah had all things needful within in, and to take hold of the Torah was to take hold of the sum of wisdom. The uniting principle of all Judaism was not a list of rules, it was God’s words breathed out and etched onto paper, the foundation of their faith that was their salvation.

            In asking Jesus which commandment, out of something like 613 of them, was most important, the trap was meant to show him as a something other than what he was. If he prioritized one command over another, it would be easy to accuse him of all manner of wickedness. Jesus could have been written off as an anti-government radical, as an antinomian relativist, as a dangerous visionary bent on revenge. The beauty of the trap which was set for Jesus is that most people would be unable to find anything like a right answer. We as human beings are too prone to extremes, to find our favorite feature of a thing and lift that up above all others.

            If any one of us were asked what the greatest commandments were, if we did not know the answer that Jesus gave, then we would no doubt find that we all have hundreds of different understandings of scripture. Some among us would emphasize purity laws and some economic ones. For some we would be caught up in esoterics of proper worship and others lost in the weeds of what constitutes someone worthy of God’s salvation. The commandments which we prioritize in our life are the ones that we not only keep, but the ones which we find ourselves searching out, making sure others are keeping to them, enforcing above all others.

            The question was not being asked to just anyone though. The scripture we read today shows an oblivious party coming to God and asking God what in God’s law is most significant. The one person who could not be tricked, the one person who could give the correct answer and who we have no reason to doubt. Jesus looks beyond the intent of the question to trap him. Jesus looks beyond the opportunity this moment would give him to humiliate his opponents or to cast dispersions on them, and instead gives them the truth. A hard truth, but one that no one could deny. It rested in their soul and took root. Whether or not that root would grow into a tree, would produce fruit, well that is never answered for us.

            The truth was, that if we were to truly understand God’s love and God’s instruction, then nothing would be more significant to us than Loving God and Loving our Neighbor. Nothing. It is a litmus test that is only difficult in extremity. Whenever we do anything in our life, we do so with these tests to determine whether or not we have acted properly. If I say something cruel that makes me feel good in a moment, have I honored God? Have I honored the person I spoke to? If I spent my money on the fifth or sixth frivolous expense I happened upon that month, have I loved God with that action? Have I spent my money wisely when my neighbor is living hand to mouth?

            Those are two obvious examples of this metric, things that we can grasp onto and see the binary of a yes or no answer. Excessive and wasteful spending and cruelty are obviously wrong, but the question gets complicated when we begin applying it to the larger things in life. Is it a just thing to support X law or Y candidate? Is it right to buy from this brand, when so much of what they do hurts so many people? If someone who I disagree with is actively hurting people as a result of the stance they hold, when does my politeness become complicity?

            The metric which Christ gives us is not meant to be glib, it is not meant to be the end of the conversation. It opens up a world of options for us to explore, a world of questions and answers that we could only imagine before. If the greatest commandments, if the sum of God’s law is that we love God and one another, then there is a great deal we have to change. As our confession before communion every month says, “We have not loved [God] with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done [God’s] will, we have broken [God’s] law, we have rebelled against [God’s] love, we have not loved our neighbors, and we have not heard the cry of the needy.

            The next few weeks are going to be difficult for a great many people. The reality that politics is not just a nebulous thing that exists, “Over there,” but something that impacts every aspect of our life has become more obvious in recent years. Many will be going to the ballots knowing that, depending on what laws pass and what people take office, their life may well be in danger – if not from one thing than another. The next few weeks will be highly charged, they will be vicious, and God help us they may even be violent.

            The Christian response in the midst of all this, in the middle of a world that does not know what to do, is not to shout from ivory towers about the importance of civility. It is not even to ask all people to take on a moderate attitude. That would be a dishonest assessment even of our own views on most anything. The world is as it always has been, desperately searching for an answer to the great questions of life. In a world clinging to find what is real, what is lasting, we can provide an answer, like Jesus did before us.

            We can look at those we meet in our daily life, whether they be friends or enemies, and we can tell them the truth. That above all in this life, we hold two banners – we love God, and we love others. We are never called to do one or the other, but in all things, we must embody both. John Wesley put it succinctly in defining the work of the Christian as, Doing no harm. Doing good. And attending to all the ordinances of the faith. If in doing good, we cause harm, we have failed. If in doing good we fail to attend to the work of God, we have failed.

            The path ahead, not only in the next few weeks, but for our entire futures, is not going to be an easy path. It never has been, and we should not pretend otherwise. However, we walk this path with the full knowledge that the one who has laid this challenge before us is the very same person who will see us through it. In the uncertainty of daily life let us learn to turn to Christ and hear his words. We will Love God and one Another we must have faith in that much. – Amen.

Beholding God – Lectionary 10/18/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Exodus 33: 12-33

Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” He said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.”

The Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing that you have asked; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” Moses said, “Show me your glory, I pray.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, ‘The Lord’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live.” And the Lord continued, “See, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by; then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen.”

Sermon Text

            Our life of faith, in all the different ways it manifests itself, is summed up with us becoming closer to God. We want to know God intimately, to see God face to face. We grow in our love for God and one another, we work toward perfection, and in all things align ourselves with God’s purposes for our lives. The call that we receive when we come into the faith is answered in a life lived toward God.

            Since our entire life is found in pursuing God, in beholding God wherever God appears in our life, we are seekers as often as we are recipients. We do not worship a God who remains in one place, but a God that is constantly ambulating across creation. If we stay in one place too long we risk losing our energy, our drive to chase after God and to seek closer and closer communion with the Divine love which originates us. We must be on the move as God is on the move, if not in a locative sense than in a spiritual and active one. We must seek our God wherever God can be found and acknowledge that that sometimes requires us to break out from the patterns and comforts that we are accustomed to.

            We have spoken several times about the way that God has moved us into new territory in the midst of this Pandemic, both in the literal sense that we spent a long time outside and online and the more figurative sense of so many of the dangers and troubles of our world being exposed with so little to distract us. As happens from time to time, we were pushed out of our comfort zones and found that – beyond the safe walls we have constructed for ourselves – the world remains a fallen and concerning place. Now we have moved into more familiar surroundings. I am back in a suit, our worship is back in the churches in an altered but still familiar format, and we now risk getting back into a situation where life is normal, where we can build up the barriers that keep us from seeing life as it is. We risk becoming stagnant in our pursuit of God.

            This is not a unique problem to us or to our time. Some theorists suggest that, every five hundred years or so in Christianity there is a shake-up. Something happens that changes the field on which we all sojourn. For the early Church the Edict of Toleration put out by Constantine and their subsequent rise to power changed everything about how they interacted with the world. Five hundred years later the oppressed church settled into power sufficiently to begin actively oppressing others, sparking not only the Crusades but centuries of violence over religious and civil disagreements. Then came Martin Luther, King Henry VIII, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and others who decentralized church power and splintered Christianity into one thousand denominational lines. Now we, five hundred years removed from that, encounter a world of instant communication, of the slow decline of institutions, of a post-modern reimaging of all that we once took for granted.[1]

            The five-hundred-year theory has its faults, and allows us to forget that every century, every decade, in fact every moment of every day is significant in shaping history. Yet, it does show that we can never just keep doing what we have always done. The world spins round, time passes and technology morphs, and attitudes toward all manner of things change. In the same way that the way we live would be unintelligible to a first century Greek, so too would their life be unintelligible to those who lived among Imperial Christianity or the Protestant Reformation. We who are so locked in our ways, we who resist the winds of change around us, we often find ourselves depending on systems and ways of being that have long since passed from usefulness, and because of this we miss out on the new things going on around us.

            Our scripture for today demonstrates an episode in which something is clearly not working for the people of God. Just before God and Moses speak about glory, beauty, and what it means to see someone face to face, the people of Israel made the decision to make a calf of gold and worship it rather than wait for Moses to return to them with tidings from God. The Israelites likely thought that their actions were positive, the cow to them represented the same God who was on the mountain, and wanting to see God face to face they created an idol that would become God for them. They did not think to wait, because they thought they could force God’s hand in the matter.

            God raged against the people, but did not abandon them. Moses began the work of reconciling the people to God and set up a tent of meeting for the people to consult God whenever they needed to through his mediation. Moses wanted to work alongside God to make sure that people did not have to lose hope or try toforce God into any situation. Moses created a space where God and humanity could intersect, a sacred space of mutual relationship.

            Where the Israelites had responded to God by trying to force God into the things they had known before, that is idols that constrained a God to one place, Moses had created a moveable tent that showed clearly that God was never bound. It was a space that God could come into and be with God’s people, but not a place that presumed it could hold onto God. It was a tabernacle meant for meetings, not a house or prison for the deity.

            Moses could have stopped here and would have been find to do so. God would come and be among God’s people, Moses would be the intermediary, and all would be well. Moses, like we today, could have been content to have God enter into the sanctuary as God felt called to and otherwise tolerate the absence of God in the in-between times. Why chase after something? Why seek what you are guaranteed? Why pursue what you know is already yours?

            However, as any of us who are married and many of us who have a sense of what it means to be in relationships generally, settling for “good enough,” in a relationship is never best practices. Even in the covenant of marriage, intended as it is to be a lifelong endeavor, the covenant can only thrive when both parties actively seek not only to love and honor, but daily pursue one another. This is not a vain romantic pining or grandiose display that can be easily Instagramable, but an earnest pursuit to know one another more completely, more fully, to love and be loved and to never stop in seeking new ways to express and inhabit that love.

            For Moses this meant hiking back up the Holy Mountain. It meant looking to God and asking directly, “Did you really mean you were going to lead us through the wilderness? Cause I don’t want an angel intermediary, I want you! Did you really mean you will dwell among us? Because I don’t want occasional visits, I want you to live among us! Did you really mean we can speak, face to face? Because I want to know you more, I want to know all about you, I cannot rest until I see your glory fully!”

            Moses, spoke to God as close as anyone ever had except for Christ, and he still wanted more. Moses was not content simply to meet God once a week in a sanctuary, not content to have some vague notion of a God who lived in his vicinity, Moses wanted all of God and Moses was willing to break the mold to do so. Moses climbed Horeb, Moses shunned idols and pursued God personally, Moses left his tent and found God in an out of the ordinary place in an out of the ordinary way.

            We too can find God in new places. We too can find God beyond the comforts we have tried to constrain God too. Beyond the four walls of a church or the limited bounds of our theologies and expectations. Beyond traditional ways of doing church and gathering together. God is on the move, and if we are willing to follow we will find God again and again.

            Does this mean all of what was is bad? Must faith expressions be completely fresh or else become dull idols and distractions? Of course not! God’s word to us is a sure place to find our footing and the traditions that come before us are often not only time honored but proven means of understanding those same scriptures. Even as our denominational structures are challenged and change, as they shift and are renewed, we find that the core streams of God’s work remains in some way. There is power in the past, there is power in what God has given us before, the eternal quality of God is that a gift of God can never become a curse.

            However, we must not be content to live in what was. We must not be content even with what currently is. The Kingdom of God is always advancing, the work of the Spirit is always renewed, the Son of God is eternally begotten of the Father. Fresh expressions, fresh manifestations of God’s power, they intersect with our ancient traditions in a way that rejuvenates the body of Christ. For two millennia the Church has stood, for two millennia the Church has changed, but for two millennia the Church has remained the body of Christ redeemed for the transformation of the world.

            So, this week let us heed the words of scripture, and seek after the face of God. Let us meet God where we never have before. Perhaps in reading a position on scripture we have never read before. Perhaps in taking up a friend on talking about that thing they are passionate about but that we never really gave any time to. Perhaps in a new spiritual practice like fasting, or praying a certain prayer, or reading scripture in a certain way. Yet, let us unite our pursuit of God with one unifying idea. That however we chase after God, we do with love as our banner, with truth as our guide, and with the brilliant glory of God as our goal. – Amen.

[1] Phyllis Tickle. “An Interim Report.” In Emergence Christianity (Ada, Michigan: Baker Books. 2012)

The Sins of our Fathers – 10/11/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Psalm 106: 1-27

Praise the Lord! O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. Who can utter the mighty doings of the Lord, or declare all his praise? Happy are those who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times.

Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people; help me when you deliver them; that I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones, that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation, that I may glory in your heritage.

Both we and our ancestors have sinned; we have committed iniquity, have done wickedly. Our ancestors, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wonderful works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name’s sake so that he might make known his mighty power.

He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry; he led them through the deep as through a desert. So he saved them from the hand of the foe, and delivered them from the hand of the enemy. The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them was left. Then they believed his words; they sang his praise.

But they soon forgot his works; they did not wait for his counsel. But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness, and put God to the test in the desert; he gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them.

They were jealous of Moses in the camp, and of Aaron, the holy one of the Lord. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the faction of Abiram. Fire also broke out in their company; the flame burned up the wicked.

They made a calf at Horeb and worshiped a cast image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

Therefore he said he would destroy them—had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.

Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise. They grumbled in their tents, and did not obey the voice of the Lord. Therefore he raised his hand and swore to them that he would make them fall in the wilderness and would disperse their descendants among the nations, scattering them over the lands.

Sermon Text

            I am fascinated by the life and times of John Adams. The HBO documentary starring Paul Giamatti is one of my favorite docudramas, 1776 is one of my favorite stage musicals, anything that looks into the life of this man stands out to me. He was a brilliant thinker, a brilliant statesman, and you would be hard pressed to find a more incredible love than the one that existed between himself and his wife, Abigail. He is the complete package.

            John Adams is just one example of a fascinating person from the past. Others include, the doomed inventor Thomas Midgely Jr. someone who I discussed early on in my time here or the minimalist theologian Ulrich Zwingli. Even in scripture there are some figures that stand out among the others for being prominent or interesting. Many of the Kings of Judah and Israel, the post-Babylonian civic and religious leaders Ezra and Nehemiah, and so on and so forth. Our past is replete with people who can inspire us to greatness, who we can study with great intensity. However, in these studies and our reflection on the great figures of the past, we must be careful that our understanding of their life does not become whimsical or nostalgic.

            What I mean by this is that the reality of the people who came before us is often more complicated than we would like it to be. As in the modern world, very few people who became notable for what they did were people of spotless moral or social conscience. The prominent statesmen of the past, no matter the good they did, were often responsible for a great deal of evil. The great theologians, though they taught us of God and of Christ and formulated magnificent treatises on how we come into the body of Christ, often neglected the weightier matters of the law. Even within the Biblical narrative itself, we are often invited to read the lives of the characters within, not with rose colored glasses, but with a firm, honest, and critical lens.

            Returning to my favorite founding father, we find that, while John Adams escapes many of the sins of the other founding fathers, it is impossible not to look at his legacy and be critical of it. While he did not own slaves, and even wrote against the practice from time to time privately, he did not consider it a sufficiently pressing moral question to act upon. His wife, Abigail, disagreed and worked as an abolitionist. While he managed to avoid war with France, criticism of his presidency led to him forming the “Aliens and Sedition Act.” On one hand this made it nearly impossible to criticize the government without fear of retaliation, on the other it first made it harder to become a citizen and then deprived non-citizens of many of the rights they would have otherwise enjoyed.

            While it is easy for us to wave our hand at one or several of these features, after all most of these laws passed out of existence within three years of their passing. After all, it was normal in that day and age to keep slaves. None of these offenses were without criticism even in their own time. Slavery was actively opposed by many in the colonies, including the initial Methodist movement before it sold-out to the popular culture of the time. His silence therefore would have rung loud and clear to those with ears to hear it. Regarding the Alien and Seditions Acts – it led to the unforgiveable act of Japanese Internment during WWII.

            The two understandings, the lauding of his goodness and the condemnation of his failures, are not oppositional beliefs. The student of history must be willing to do both. We cannot learn from the past if we pretend that it is the ideal that we somehow lost, as Ecclesiastes puts it, “Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these? ”For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” (Eccl. 7:10) Nostalgia does very little good, and quite a bit of evil. On the other hand, blind opposition to things past causes us to lose the wisdom it holds. Many problems we have today we have had for ages, and the past has some wisdom about them.

            There has been persistent discussion in recent years, truly for a few decades, over how we should treat the past. As critical means of analysis have become more prevalent in academia they have been met with open arms by some, and deep suspicion and opposition by others. For my part, I earned my degree in Religious Studies focusing on critical histories of the Christian tradition and indeed have worked throughout seminary with critical theories of all colors. In all the years that I have been studying through critical lenses, never once was I called upon to denounce my faith, my lineage (muddled though it may be,) or my sense of self. However, at every step I was invited to think about what I thought I knew in new ways, from new perspectives.

            The art of reviewing the past and acknowledging the good and bad within it is not something that we have to go blindly into, in fact it does not require any formal knowledge of post-modernism or post-colonial theory or any other such framework. I say this because we have one of the most comprehensive examples of historical criticism available to us in this, that is to say, in the Holy Bible. This book, our sacred scripture, is made up of 66 books.

Of those books, something like 10 of them directly act as historical accounts and critiques of the Kings of Israel and their reigns. The 12 prophets utilize the history of God’s people to inform their contemporaries of how far back their corruption goes, the Psalms often do the same. Even in the books that are not strictly historical we find similar critiques – the five books of Moses, Ezra and Nehemiah, even Ruth and Esther to a degree, all paint a picture of God’s people that is not just good people doing good things, but complicated people doing both good and evil with their life. Look at any Biblical figure, you will only find one who is above reproach, who is worthy of exaltation and veneration, only one Christ who is our salvation and example,

            It is paramount that we do not think our histories, whether they be our family histories, our national histories, or our denominational and theological histories are greater than the histories recorded in scripture. If the word of God was capable of analyzing its subjects, lifting up what was good and condemning what was bad, without making excuses for their behavior or ignoring the nastier aspects of their life, then we have no excuse for not being able to do the same. I will always be fascinated by John Adams, I will always in some ways see him as a model rabble rousing statesmen, but I cannot do so without treating with equal seriousness the sins he committed against his fellow human beings.

            Popular discourse surrounding history in recent years has become a polarizing one. There are those who would like the figures of the past to stay in our exalted memory, paragons of the ideals that we have lifted above all others. There are others, who through legitimate means of analysis, have decided that the sins of the past cannot be ignored. That we cannot pretend that our forebearers were often exceedingly wicked toward those unlike themselves. That it is difficult to lift up as a paragon of virtue, those who owned other human beings as a means of producing capital.

            However, I do not believe that there is truly so great a gulf between the two ideals. In both cases, people desire to connect with the past in some earnest way. On one side, the legitimate goods of the past need to be lifted up and emulated and on the other the real and present evil of ages past must be exposed for what it was. If we wish to grow, not only as individuals but as a culture, then both are necessary. Duality is inherent in any human being, in any human society, and failure to acknowledge success or failure ultimately results in a stagnant and increasingly insular society.

            Our scripture today stands out to us because, for the entirety of Psalm 106 that author makes no claim to the goodness of God’s people. The Psalmist asks for God make them right, to restore God’s heritage within themself, but then lists every sin they can think of their people committing. In the conclusion, which we did not hear, the Psalmist asks for their people to be returned to the promised land, telling us that this Psalm was written during the Babylonian exile. It was in exile, when all the pet pleasures and distractions of Israel were removed, that this rumination became possible. The realization that the great legacy of Israel was more complicated than just being God’s people but was actually fraught with sin and betrayal only came when the people could not delude themselves otherwise.

            For us today, facing one of the most contentious elections in our history. For us today, in the midst of a deadly pandemic. For us today, in a country that cannot decide on how it wants to tell its story. We will hopefully find ourselves becoming more considerate of how we got where we are. Not through a long history of sinless leaders and populace, but a long a troubled fight to establish a truly good society. In every generation there is a call to moral action, there are some successes and some failings. There are epochs of prosperity and justice and goodness, but always in the shadows there is injustice. We cannot stand on the summit of our history any more than Israel could remain on Sinai, because at the foot of the mountain will always be our golden calf.

We cannot talk about the American Revolution and the fight for liberty without addressing the failure to free the enslaved. Cannot speak of Westward expansion without talking about the genocide of Native Americans. Cannot talk about Lincoln’s emancipation of the enslaved without talking about his view that the black race was inferior and could not live among whites. We cannot talk about the Civil Rights Movement without addressing the prison industrial complex. And as we go about our lives today, we must understand that we are writing a history people will someday read.

            Will we stand out as a dark era of evil or a paragon of virtue. That is a decision we must make, and it can only happen when we reject the evil we have inherited and accept our true heritage which is found in righteousness, not in blind love of our past. In goodness alone not in warm feelings of empty pride. In Christ alone not in the exaltation and apotheosis of any other hero. Let us study, let us be unsettled, and let us be willing to put away and grow beyond the Sins of our Fathers. – Amen.

Be Honest Tenants – Lectionary 10/04/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 21:33-46

“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce.

But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’

So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

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

‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?

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

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

Sermon Text

            Today the Church celebrates, “World Communion Sunday.” It is a moment to remember that when we take the bread and the cup, we do so as a single people united by Christ. The Spirit that moves between us here is the same Spirit that unites us to all Christians across the world. The Kingdom of God knows know borders, it has no language, it is above and beyond all categories that we would wish to impose upon ourselves. The unity of the Kingdom, made up of disparate and distinct parts and personalities, expressed in the sacramental act that we all participate in today.

            We do not inhabit the Kingdom simply as passive benefactors of God’s goodness, but active caretakers of those who God have given into our charge. We do not belong to ourselves, but to the Church, the Church does not belong to us, but to Christ alone. Our whole life is wrapped up in a consistent and continual service of love to all we meet. We are caretakers of God’s kingdom, sustained by the Grace given freely and abundantly to us. We are tenants in the vineyard which God has prepared for us.

            This creates a dual identity in us, as far as today’s parable is concerned. On one hand we are the produce of the Kingdom of God, the grapes which are grown within the vineyard. On the other, we are the caretakers of that same vineyard. We are born from the ground of God’s goodness, and as we are raised up in the shade of the vines we come to care for that very same ground. Like Adam born out of the clay of Eden to be its caretaker, we are born from the vineyard of God to help continue its growth. We are Tenant and we are crop, and in both capacities we await the coming of God who will gather us together and say to us, “Good and faithful servant.”

            At least that is the hope. To be told we have served God faithfully, we must in fact serve God faithfully. We must tend the vineyard which has been given us, and carry out the ordinances of God to the fullest extent. We can not neglect the weighty call upon our lives to spread the Gospel, to love our neighbors and our enemies in equal measure, to let go of all our unrighteousness and put on Christ’s own righteousness. We are called to be a nation of priests, and a holy people in service to God and one another.

            The Parable of the Tenants transforms an earlier parable, namely the song of the Vineyard in Isaiah 5. In that passage God looks to Jerusalem, to Judah, to the surviving remnant of the people of God, and describes how he loves them. God loved them enough to plant them, to guard them, to raise up everything they needed to thrive. Yet, the song says, they produced thorns and bad grapes, they were unfit for their purpose, and the only thing to be done with them was to uproot them and destroy the vineyard. In particular, the people are accused of killing one another rather than living justly, causing people to cry out against their evil rather than praise their righteousness.

            Jesus uses this parable, in which the understanding is that God’s people have failed to meet expectations and shifts the focus away from the produce of the vineyard to those who are working it. When the rightful owner sends slaves to take the good produce from the vineyard, the tenants kill them. Even the son of the owner, sent as a final show of force against the wicked tenants, is killed by them in an attempt to seize the land for themselves. Bloodshed, rather than justice. Blood that cries out from the ground rather than righteousness. Destruction is promised for the tenants, while the vineyard – rather than being destroyed as it is in Isaiah – is given over to other people who will tend it faithfully.

            We are blessed that God has decided that his people are worth saving rather than destroying. Ever since the Flood, God’s mission in the world has been to redeem it through blessings rather than chastisement. If a flood could not drown evil, then perhaps grace could stamp it out through purification and growth. God redeems the land which has been cursed. God restores the crop that was allowed to rot in the ground. God tends to God’s vineyard when those put in charge of it have failed. God is in the business of redemption and God does not abandon even the most dire of situations.

            As recipients of this gift of redemption, we have nothing we can do but give thanks to God. There are those of us who have much that we can be thankful for being redeemed from and those of us with far fewer offenses that have needed covering, but all of us have some blemish that we can praise God for having healed. The hurt of the past, the sins we have committed, the evil we have tolerated, all washed in the redemptive work of God who has not given up on the beloved creation.

            However, we are not simply recipients of God’s grace. We are stewards of it. It is not the duty of ministers alone to care for the church, although we are called specifically to do so. Every person called to be a part of the body of Christ has an obligation toward its wellbeing. No one in all the earth is exempt from their role as steward of God’s grace. We are to give freely of what we are given, to return all that is due to God to God, and at the end of all things to be found honest tenants of all that we have been given.

            On this World Communion Sunday, we should reflect on just how miraculous a gift our salvation is. How we, fallen and prone to wander as we are, can find – not only forgiveness – but abundant goodness. Called not simply to sit and do nothing, but to participate in the grace God has given us. Our taking of the bread and of the cup, our remembrance of Christ’s work, empowers us.

            As stewards of God’s gift we should be open to all those we meet, ready to listen and understand even the most disparate of opinions. At the same time we must be stewards of the truth which is given to us not only within scripture, but in all places where reality is revealed to us – in science, in honesty, in all earnest evaluation of what is. We must be champions of the oppressed, of the plight of the poor and the disadvantaged in all the world. We must love our enemies with the same ferocity, perhaps with even more ferocity, than we love our own friends. We must live into the righteousness of God which brings us to repentance.

            Only when the promise of the Communion table is truly fulfilled, when people of all races, nations, and creeds gather together with Christ as their banner and eat together, will we know we have succeeded in our mission. When we do not regard one nation or another as more significant in God’s economy, one people or another as more righteous or Godly,  when every obstacle to our participation in God’s grace is removed, then we will know that the Kingdom is truly here among us.

The Kingdom of God, founded in antiquity long forgotten, the beloved vineyard grown up and cared for with God’s grace alone. It is from it we are born, and we are its tenants until Christ returns in final victory. Let us live into our role fully. Let us never back down from doing what is right. Let us rebuke all who do evil and bless all who do what is right. Let us atone for all the sins we have committed and make restitution to all we have wronged. Be honest Tenants, now and forever, and may God bless the work as we pursue the righteousness of the one who calls us. – Amen.

A Hollow God – Lectionary 09/27/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Philippians 2:1-13

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Sermon Text

            Two weeks ago, we discussed the cross as the ultimate source of glory and scandal in our life. However, before the scandal of the cross came another scandal. The incarnation of Jesus was the first instance of God’s subversion and violation of our expectations. The God of the Universe, coming into the world to bring about God’s kingdom, ought to come as a conquering hero, or a strong king, or some great priest who leads the people into a holier tomorrow. Such an incarnation would see Christ ruling the earth and bending it to his will, such an incarnation would make sense to us. If you want something done, why not do so with strength and power and with all the authority you hold as God.

            Certainly, this was the dream of the prophets and of the Jewish revolutionaries of the late centuries BCE. The three main perspectives were that God’s justice would come through a Messiah that was a holy Judge over creation, or a Kingly warrior, or a Holy Priest.[1] The existence of three distinct views allowed for a certain fluidity to exist about how the Jews in the post-exilic world expected God to redeem them. It was not uncommon for people to claim to be Messiahs or to be given the title by others. For example, Cyrus the Great of Persia, the conqueror of Babylon, is called God’s “Messiah,” in the book of Isaiah – a temporary attribution for what would become an eternal and deific title. (Isaiah 45:1)
            All three perspectives on the Messiah believed that the seemingly rational thing for God to do, was to take on a position of power and strength and might in reordering the world. God, if God thought like we did and was to accomplish God’s goals like we do, would not want to be anything but quick, exacting, and strong armed in executing God’s judgment and salvation within the world. But God did none of this. God was none of that. God became nothing, God hollowed out Christ, taking on humanity, and denying himself all the glory of Godhood.

            We are told that Christ, the eternal Word of God, looked at the glory of his Godhood, not as something to hold onto like a vice, but to let go of.[2] The hymn that constitutes the majority of our scripture today describes Christ as, “emptying himself,” literally – making himself hollow. Christ gives up the throne of Heaven, takes on human flesh, and lives out the life of a slave to all people. Christ follows the path of his life of service to the very end, dying on the cross that defines shame and fear, and only after all this is complete is given back the glory that was due to him. The victory of Christ was in death, was in shame, was in a life lived on the outskirts and margins of all “decent” society.

            Christ was rejected by almost all those in authority. Pharisees who held sway over local populations as teachers of God’s law rejected him, even though their teachings were so often similar. The Sadducees who controlled the Temple and who rejected the ministry of prophets and preachers outside of Moses rejected him, even though he spoke with the authority of Moses and then some. Even the Essenes and Zealots, the most radical of the Jewish sects, rejected Jesus even though he too opposed both Rome and Jerusalem for their sins against God’s people. Jesus was rejected by all authorities of his day and for many different reasons. Most powerful of all these reasons was that Jesus had no interest in earthly authority, no desire to rule Rome or Judah, but only to do the will of God at all times.

            A person who does not desire power cannot be bought with money. They do not seek out a position to take advantage of others. A person who does not love strength and might will not fight back against you when you attack them. Such a person is dangerous above all others. A person willing to suffer all manner of violence, to love the one who pierces their side, who does not fear death but gladly takes a crown of thorns as though it is a crown of gold. A person who is willing to die, and more than that to die without complaint or raising up arms against their murderer is a person that cannot be controlled. The threat of power, of force, of coercion, is lost on a person who regards even their life as inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

            God entered humanity and destabilized all the systems that Christ came in contact with. A wedge was put between the way things were and the way they could be. All oppressive systems were useless against Jesus. He had no money, and so you could not steal it to deprive him of his livelihood. He had no power, so you could not strip him of his office to silence him. He had no home, so you had no place to track him down to and threaten him. The King of all the Universe, now a vagrant with no power, was somehow able to counter all threats against himself. Jesus embodied the idea, “When all you’ve got is nothing, there’s a lot to go around.”[3]

            The Hollow God, the Messiah who came without any power to speak of, nonetheless retained his Godhood. Jesus never ceased to be a member of the Trinity, never lost his rightful place seated beside the Father in Heaven. Jesus had given up all authority, all rights to power and glory, and yet retained his God-ness, his Θεοτης (Theotes.)  Being fully human he was a slave to all, being fully God he was the ruler of all, and being the uniquely existing Christ neither fact conflicted with the other. Christ was King, Christ was also a slave, Christ was all powerful, Christ had given up all power.

            Christ only found his power on Earth through obedience to God. Obedience defined not by passivity, but by activity. Christ, having nothing to call his own, lived among those who had nothing to give him. The poor, the outcast, the sinner, the people who had been denied even their humanity by the society around them. Christ, if he was living in our world today, would not be with us in this gathering – where we gather regularly to pretend we have our life somewhat together – but out in the streets. Christ would be in bars and alleyways rather than churches. Christ would be sleeping under bridges and park benches rather than cozy houses. Christ would be in the places we do not dream to look, far away even from our modest means. We have too much power – and Christ would abhor our hoarding of it.

            The ultimate revelation of the Christ hymn is not just that Christ gave up so much to be with us on earth, but that Christ models that self-emptying for us as well. In the same way that Christ gave up retribution for mercy, we also are called to turn the other cheek. In the same way Christ did not fear death, we are called to live as people who do not fear those who can kill the body but not the soul. As Christ opposed the oppressive forces of his day through advocacy with the poor and rejection of power, we are called to take up our cross, the ultimate sign of shame and loss, and follow him to Calvary. Christ emptied himself in a way we could never understand, to remind us that we must empty ourselves in every way that we can.

            We are a people who love to win. We want victory, we want to live perpetually in Easter, but we ignore that we live simultaneously in the victory of Christ and in the world that still languishes in death. We are not worldly victors, accruing money and power, but spiritual victors who are transformed into the image of God through Christ’s righteous actions upon our life.

            In the Roman world, when a country was defeated in war, statues were erected of the Caesar or the victorious general standing over that country – represented often as a woman in chains. The word used in our text for Jesus’ rejection of his rights as God is similar to the one use to describe these images.[4] In so much as Jesus did not hoard his power as God, neither did he seize power as a human being. The Christ hymn of Philippians asks that we never look to inspiration from an imposing victor standing over his enemies, but to glory in the person at their feet. Jesus did not live on earth as a king crushing people beneath his heel, but as the victim of the kings of the earth. Our victory is not in dominion or in power, it is in loss, in death, in powerlessness.

            As worshippers of a Hollow God, we too must be Hollow people. Hollowed out of pride, of arrogance, of love of wealth and power, even love of life itself. This does not make us reckless, we do not “[rush] on death… Without being martyrs.”[5] We live lives instead that are rooted in divesting ourselves of the privilege and power we have been born with or else accrued. We give money at all opportunities to worthy causes and needy people. Our primary focus is not upon whether or not we can defend ourselves, but on what risks we ought to take for the good of others. We do not long to be victorious over the world, we do not see displays of might or violence as Christian and good, but through submission to God walk up the road and accept the loss of everything we have if it is the will of God.

            We worship a slave crucified by those in power. We must not think we are greater than our master. We must oppose the proud, the oppressive, the evil and the cruel, not through joining in their wickedness, but through taking on the yoke Christ has prepared for us. We must suffer, we must die to this world, and indeed die in our flesh, but we do so with Christ as the example before us. Unless a seed fall into the ground and die, it cannot be born again. So to, we cannot experience the life of Christ unless we empty ourselves, unless we lay at the altar every good gift God has given us, and regard these things as loss for the cause of the Gospel.

Ours is not the earthly victory, ours is not the dominion of the world or one another, ours is the earthly death and the heavenly victory, ours in not violence and dominion but submission and peace. Do not grab at power outside yourself or hold onto power within yourself, but let us all cast it aside, let us empty ourselves, let us find nothing in ourselves but the Spirit of God who first emptied themself for our good. Praise God, praise the humble King, praise the victory we win in loss. Praise Jesus Christ, the name above all other names. – Amen.

[1] Bart D. Ehrman “Jesus the Suffering Son of God” in A Brief Introduction to the New Testament. (New York, New York: Oxford. 2009) 61

[2] T. Francis Glasson“Two Notes on the Philippians Hymn.” In New Testament Stud. 21, pp. 133-139

[3]  Brian Stokes Mitchell. Through Heaven’s Eyes. The Prince of Egypt. DreamWorks Records. Digital

[4] Katherine A. Shaner. “Seeing Rape and Robbery: ἁρπαγμαός and the Philippians Christ Hymn” Biblical Interpretation 25 (2017) 342-363

[5] Clement. Stromata. IV.

How Dare God be Merciful – Lectionary 09/20/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Jonah 3:10-4:11

Now When God saw what they did, how they [Nineveh] turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

Sermon Text

            There concepts of justice and mercy are two things that we cannot, while on Earth, fully comprehend. Our definitions for them are dependent on understandings we discovered while inhabiting our broken world. Except through Divine Revelation we cannot truly learn what either word means, and oftentimes God’s revelation still seems unimaginable to us. The ultimate act of mercy in God’s work with us was the crucifixion of Jesus. The death of God’s truly innocent and righteous Son is the foundational image of God’s mercy, and that image could only exist in the most unjust of deaths we could ever imagine. God on the cross suffering for us, God in the grave having died for us, the source of all life cast out beyond life itself.

            Our inability to conceive of what either Justice or Mercy could look like requires that we create images of them, either through stories or art, to try and address even the simplest element of either. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a theologian writing in and against Nazi Germany, believed that we who ae, as he put it, “in the Middle,” cannot conceive truly of what was in the beginning of creation – when justice and mercy were all that there was – and so must use almost fanciful logic to even begin to understand what a life without evil would look like.[1] We create stories, parables, and fables to chase after the realities that are too alien for us to even begin to imagine.

            The particular realities of Justice – God’s ability to bring about right conclusions to situations – and Mercy – God’s gift of grace given to all people – are beyond our ability to ever truly conceive of. We as a people see Justice as an act of revenge, and so we cast God as a vengeful force punishing our enemies. We as a people see Mercy as erasure of consequences, and so we see God as our ultimate get out of jail free card to excuse all our wrongdoing.

            Yet, these definitions are not sufficient – they do not jive with the world we inhabit. If Justice from God were truly a matter of vengeance, then God would be nothing but a ball of fire and judgment, because everyone at some time will have done wrong against God. A vengeful God would indeed destroy the world constantly. Likewise, a God whose mercy was founded on erasing consequences and mitigating responsibility could not ask anything of anyone. Certainly, such a God would not be able to tell us, “take up your cross,” such a God could not call us to repentance. If Mercy means that we can do what we wish then it is a cheap sort of grace.

            The paradox of divine judgment is so complex that we must tell parables that place the two in contrast. Jesus frequently describes God’s stern Justice as coming as a consequence of an individual or community’s lack of mercy. Paul places the paradox in terms of a potter making one vessel for destruction and another for glorification. Theologians throughout history have reconciled the two, making one a complement to the other, but always from the same perspective of, “the middle,” always unsure what exactly God’s view of the thing might be.

            As a lover of mystery novels and film, I myself see a beautiful example of this contrast in the BBC production of Murder on the Orient Express starring David Suchet. The Belgian detective, Hercule Poiort, in this version struggles with whether Justice is simply following all rules and facing all consequences. He uncovers a revenge plot, he exposes those responsible for the killing, and in this version delivers and impassioned speech that describes justice as the ultimate principle of human life, unshakeable and divinely given. The novel ends with him offering two options for how to prosecute the case, one Merciful and the other the textbook definition of Justice. In this film version, Poirot chooses one of the two, and the choice leaves him clutching his rosary and weeping – unsure if he has just sinned or done what was right.

            The story of Jonah is also a parable of Justice and Mercy. Though Jonah was a real prophet who worked in the early parts of the eighth century BCE, the book of Jonah is almost universally viewed as a piece of historic fiction. Whatever events in the book did happen have been retroactively adjusted to create a play the criticizes the readers expectations of the story. It is not a strict retelling of events like we might see in a biography of a person, but a literary interpretation of their life. To understand by analogy, it is less like a 1:1 biography of Alexander Hamilton but more like the musical, “Hamilton,” which adjusts some historical bits and bobs to create a cohesive narrative and message.

            Jonah begins with God calling Jonah to go to Nineveh and bring them to repentance. Nineveh was the capital of the Neo-Assyrian empire, although not during the years Jonah was active. By the end of the eighth century, Assyria would move out from this city and destroy the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Nineveh was a shorthand way of saying, “The worst place imaginable,” and two scholars. André and Pierre-Emmanuel Lacocque, building off of Jewish experiences in the Holocaust, tie Nineveh to Nazi Berlin by saying, “To go to Nineveh is not very different from going to Hell.”[2]

            Jonah fled from God’s call because Jonah did not want to see these people saved. To go to the worst place imaginable and to save the people who were destined to destroy you – it did not make sense. If Jonah fled, if Nineveh was not told that they were on borrowed time, then maybe God would just destroy the city anyway. Justice, or at least Justice as Jonah imagined it, would be served, and nothing more about the matter would have to be said. Jonah was willing to defy God rather than allow for God’s mercy to manifest itself and save Jonah’s enemies.

            Jonah did so because, to him, God’s mercy was despicable, “How dare God be merciful!,” Was his essential cry, “God, you know what is coming down the line and you are letting them seek forgiveness? Forty days from now they could have been gone and we would not have had to worry about them! Why could you not have just wiped them out and made our lives easier? Why oh why did you have to be merciful?”

            Nineveh repents, Jonah sulks. Jonah wishes to die, first because God showed Mercy to Jonah’s enemies, and secondly because the tree that had given him shelter had died. God chastises Jonah and reminds him that the life of over one hundred thousand people is more important than his single tree and his pet comforts. God is clear, Mercy cannot be bound up based on the condition of what may happen in the future, Mercy does not belong to one people or country or place, Mercy is a form of Justice we can never truly understand except to give it freely as God has given it.

            Still, the story ends without resolution. Jonah does not repent and we are left with a deadlock between God and the prophet. The narrative leaves us open to decide for ourselves – who side will we take? Do we, like Jonah, want to see bloodshed and hellfire given to our enemies, real or perceived? Or do we like God want to extend a chance to change, and to work toward reconciling even the most dreaded of situations? Do we like Jonah value our comfort over the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, or are we willing to wear a mask in public and make sacrifices when it comes to leaving our house? That last one may seem sneaky, but mercy is not always in response to crime. Mercy is love enough to suffer a little indecency for the good of all people.

            Mercy is the marrow that supports all life, we live only through Mercy, and we are sustained through a Just God who gives that mercy freely. Are we willing to do the same, not only in forgiving those we have written off as enemies, but in serving those who greatly need our care? Cast yourself upon the Love of God, repent as Nineveh did long ago, and show Jonah up in your ability to do Justly and Love Mercy. – Amen.

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Trans. Douglas Stephen Bax. “The Center of the Earth.” In Creation & Fall (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press. 1997) Locations 822-844

[2] Andre Lacocque & Pierre-Emmanuel Lacocque. “A City’s Fate.” In Freedom Beyond Forgiveness. (New York, New York : Bloomsbury 1997) 133

God so Loved the World – Lectionary 09/13/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Numbers 21:4b-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.” Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

John 3:13-17

No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Sermon Text

            Snakes in the wilderness, and sinners living in a broken world. Poison that seeps through the blood – either as a neurotoxin from the fangs of a viper or as the wicked inclinations that lodge in the heart and manifest in our actions in the world. Christ, in telling Nicodemus how he can be born again of the Spirit, reaches into the history of God’s salvation of God’s people. To understand Jesus, we must understand the work of the Exodus, to understand the Exodus, we must understand the bronze serpent lifted up for the people of God. If we want to know what God is doing, we must see what God has done.

            When the people of God were taken out of Egypt, out of the House of Slavery, they were not led directly into the promised land. That journey would have taken them only a few months in the worst of circumstances, however we are told that they spent years moving in a circuitous root around the desert. They went from Egypt to Sinai, or Horeb as it is sometimes called. This took them down through the Sinai Peninsula and then back up to the land of Edom. From Edom they circled round into Zin and Paran, and then back again. Finally, they went through Edom and Moab to the land of Canaan – crossing the Jordan river to enter Jericho.

            The route they took, long and complicated, was far longer than it needed to be. However, we cannot see this journey as only about reaching a destination. The long journey the Israelites took is similar to our own journey. For many of us the “point” of becoming a Christian is that when we die, we get to go to Heaven. Blessed gift that our eternal presence with God is, that presence permeates all our life, not just our afterlife. We must understand that the strange and complicated journey that we take is not a distraction from the end goal, but part of the process of becoming people who can enjoy that eternity with God.

            In the wilderness, the people constantly long to return to the evil they knew, rather than face the promise of what could be. They suddenly remember Egypt as a place full of good food and plentiful shade. The burden of slavery, the abuse and death suffered in Egypt was forgotten, all because the path to the promised land was not the walk in the park the people expected. While we could easily sit and judge the shortsighted Israelites, I think we all know we are not far off from them. While we are not often migrating from one place to another over miles and miles and months and months, we do have destinations in mind and that we simply cannot stay motivated to reach.

How many times have we had our self-improvement plans fall flat? When we want to be more active or study more intensely or be better organizers? A great example is how the average Bible reading plan lasts only about two months, being generous, and many people go most of their life having never read the scriptures cover to cover. In the same way we all have bad habits that we simply cannot part with – whether they be simple things like leaving the lights on in the house, or large things like a tendency toward mocking others. Sometimes they are issues of excessive consumption, sometimes they are a consequence of our lacking moral imagination.

            Yet, the constant nostalgia of the migrant Israelites was the source of conflict. They doubted Moses, and they doubted God, they doubted their eyes and ears and preferred illusionary scenarios and conspiracies. The people longed for Halcyon days that never existed, they saw in hardship the antithesis rather than the method of their deliverance. When the going got tough, they and we got out of there.

            Except, not really, because you can never actually escape hardship in life, especially when you are working through a process of improvement. Change is never pleasant; we would much rather stay the same than ever alter our course. Even if the end of our path is ruin.

            The emergence of snakes in the wilderness is presented as an outcome of the Israelite’s nostalgia. Their longing left them sitting in the same dangerous space, not moving forward into the promise that was ahead of them, they sat still, and danger manifested as a result. As a consequence for their foolishness, for their unbending love of their own destruction, death found its way to nest among them. Burning snakes, striking out, ripping and tearing and the community. When they realized their need to be saved, when they sought deliverance, God offered a strange source of relief – something that would have seemed an anathema to those in the desert.

            God commanded that a graven image be made – a thing forbidden by the first commandment! – And that that image be raised up within the Israelite camps. The bronze serpent, the burning serpent, the Nehushtan, raised up above the community to be looked upon if ever they were in need. How strange that God provided an image to deliver people from their torment, how scandalous that it be lifted up above them, how strange that God should save God’s people in this way.

            We can see how Jesus saw this as the best way to explain his own passion. We as sinful people lost in the world needed deliverance. The consequences of our sin plain to us – the death we all must face, the degradation of relationships we cherish, the erasure of the good gifts we are given in the sea of greed we create. We cannot find a way out, no matter how hard we try, and the path that has led us to where we are has been long and winding. We have suffered a great many hardships inherent to all living people, and if we are living a truly Christian life, a few unique to that calling. The death of the self, the denial of sinful desire, the destruction of our tendency to deny others and increase ourselves. We are lost in the wilderness, we are tormented by the consequence of our actions, and we need a deliverance.

            Sometimes we may be made to wonder if there couldn’t have been another way for our sin to be washed away. Could God have erased our sin with a wave of the hand? Could God have instituted purification sufficient to erase our sin? Why do we need a cross? Why should Christ have to suffer the way Christ did? We may never know every reason the scandal of the cross was necessary, but we know that it is the way we are made whole. More than that, this image, like the Nehushtan in the desert long ago, brings us to be freed from death, freed from the punishment of our sins, freed and truly free.

            God did not see it as sufficient to give us a clean slate without an image. God did not give an order from on high to deliver us and then give us nothing to look to that we might remember our deliverance. God took on flesh, sending the eternal Logos, the eternal word of God, to live among us. In the image not only of a person, but a slave, not as someone born to glory, but as someone written off as a ne’er-do-well and sinner. He took on the image of sinful humanity, his colleagues abandoned him, people across Judea justified the execution of a rabble-rousing minister who should have just followed orders. Jesus became everything despicable and rejected by society without once warranting an ounce of this treatment.

            All this to then die on a cross, a Roman punishment for treason and sedition. To suffer under the cruelest death imaginable, drawn out over hours and following a previous night of torture and abuse. The image of our sin, and the punishment for it, was lifted up. Yet, instead of being looked upon and bringing healing in that moment, the world turned away, and only two among Jesus’s closest confidants remained to look up at him – the beloved disciple John and his mother. The image of our deliverance was hung up for the world to see, but we could not stomach it. Faced with the reality of sin and death, we rejected both and with them, we rejected our savior.

            Yet the image of Christ was not limited to the image on the cross. Christ rose from death and lives today in the blessed company of the Father. This image of our affliction raised up again, not as an example of shame and sin, but of glory and victory. For us who remain on earth, we strive to find that image. We work to become more like the ascendant Christ, more perfect and lovely, more good and loving. Yet, we must work through the wilderness we have created for ourselves, yet we must suffer the consequences of our actions and those of others.

            This is why it is important for us who are called to follow Christ to not only look to the resurrection, but like Jesus informs us of in our text, we must look to the cross itself. For as the people in the wilderness looked upon the bronze serpent and were saved, so too do we find salvation in the cross. Our savior, haven taken on an image of sin and death, hanging above us for our salvation. This is what can inspire us to persevere in the midst of hardship. The fact that Christ suffered for us, with us, as one of us, gives us the strength we need to face anything.

            The cross is the ultimate sign, not that we should get over the troubles that we face, but that we can overcome them. Even if not in victory, then in loss we can find gain because we lose alongside Christ, we suffer alongside Christ. At the end of all things, we will be raised victorious in Christ, but we are not at the end of all things. We are very much caught up in the middle. We are not in Egypt where our sin ruled us completely, nor are we in the promised land of perfection and union with God. We are in the wilderness, between our first meeting with God at the holy mountain and our final and eternal communion with God in eternal rest.

            Yet this image, found not only in artistic representations but in our celebration of Communion every month,  this icon of our salvation and of our hardship, it stands above us as a reminder that we can make the journey. It is the image of all our failings, and an image of the promise of our redemption. For God so loved the world, that we were given this blessed sight to inspire us onward, and this blessed savior that we may be reconciled to God once again.

Wherever Two or More are Gathered – Lectionary 09/06/2020

/ John Langenstein / Leave a comment

Matthew 18:15-20

“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Sermon Text

            No one has ever been excited about conflict entering into their life. Even people who love a good argument, even people who go out of their way to cause trouble, ultimately only want to do so if they have nothing to lose in the process. Argumentative people usually exercise their argumentativeness against people who they either have relationships with that allow for this kind of conversation – friends who like to get together and fuss over one thing or another – or else they take out their argumentativeness against people who have no way of stopping them – cashiers, wait-staff, anyone who is required because of their profession to take their abuse. The same largely stands for people who like to cause trouble, as long as they are in a consequence free environment or talking to someone who cannot retaliate, they are fine being ornery.

            Truly, there are not many no-risk situations in our life. When we get into arguments with one another, when someone does something that deeply affects us emotionally, even with just a passing word, when this happens, we are taken aback. Our strength leaves our body, our brow furrows questioningly, we are left wondering how we came to the place we are in. Worse than this, there are moments where we see the same thing happen to someone, we have said something to. Their face suddenly becoming worried, their posture locking up, the outward sign of inward harm shown plainly on their features.

            The burden of being in relationship with other people is that we will inevitably do something that hurts the people we are in relationship with. Our dear loved ones who we say something careless to, our coworker who we make feel slighted, our friend who we unwittingly offend. All these small things, the little pin pricks of mundane violence that we find manifesting between ourselves – they can add up. So many people are on a tightrope, struggling to balance their emotions, their self-worth, the health of their relationships, against the strong wind of conflict.

            It has often been our practice that we respond to conflict through silence. We let the small indecencies we face be met with an apparent indifference. For fear of making too much of a fuss we just let things slide. We do not tell our friend that we would really rather they not joke about the clutter in our living room or confront our coworker who cannot get it through their head that their jokes are in poor taste. Still worse, our family members often are the ones we wish above all to avoid this kind of confrontation with. The cousin who always asks when the single people in the family will go ahead and get married, the sister who is a little too quick to mock her siblings, the husband who says unkind things about his wife or children without a second thought.

            What happens when we do not address these topics? Do we see them disappear? No, in fact they tend to fester. The little pin pricks to our self-esteem, the insults to our dignity, we cannot sit by and take them indefinitely. Eventually, the wounds we sustain will be significant enough to leave us with nothing but shreds of these qualities. More than that, the structures underpinning the relationships we have with others – trust, mutual care, interest in the simple as well as complex aspects of their life – will begin to decay. In silence, in the effort to avoid conflict, we find ourselves smothering the love and connection we share with one another.

            Our scripture today offers us an alternative to avoiding conflict, and that is to engage with it honestly. To let our dissatisfaction be made known. There are moments where that may be uncomfortable, but it is only in naming something that we are able to move beyond it. The little comments that just will not stop, the hurt that has eroded the connection between us and those we know, they will destroy even the strongest relationships if left alone.

            The solution that Christ puts forward in our scripture is that when someone sins, and the implication here is that we are talking about interpersonal sin, then we must be direct in addressing it with the person who has caused the harm. If someone has said something cruel, then they need to be told it was cruel. If someone has hurt our prospects in a work setting, if someone has betrayed our trust, then we cannot just wait until they forget or we forget, we have to proactive in fixing the problem at hand. Not only that, but the discussion has to be one on one, direct and honest in every way.

            Our basic instinct when people mistreat us is to say nothing to them and tell anyone and everyone else about it. “Can you believe he would say that to me?” “What were they thinking acting like that!” We vent our feelings about the problems that face our relationships, but we do not face the problems in themselves. Yet Jesus is clear in telling us, if someone wrongs us, we have to tell them what they have done. The idea here is not just to get context, although certainly that can help us understand why someone acted the way they did, but it is primarily a chance to let the other person realize the wrong they did and try to make amends.

            While we must account for misunderstandings, the majority of conflict is not based in accidents of interpreting circumstances. If someone comes up to me and says something I find insulting, when I go to tell them that it was insulting, they cannot tell me that it was not. The person who is hurt is hurt regardless of the intent of the action. Making amends, repenting of the wrong we do, is not about explaining why we did wrong, it is about stopping the wrong we did. Someone telling us they did not intend to cause harm lets us understand why they said what they did, but it does not change the fact that they did something harmful.

            The escalation of community involvement that follows is done out of necessity. If the person who has been hurt fails to reconcile with the person who hurt them, then we are not asked to abandon them, but to try harder to bring about a just resolution. We call in other friends, preferably ones that are better at getting along with people than we are, and they can mediate the conversation. Maybe there is more than just this one incident that led to the rift between the parties involved. Maybe, the person asking for reconciliation in themself had contributed to the current situation, and only an outside, neutral, observer can identify this.

            The authority given to us by Jesus, to bind and to loose, is given so that we can draw ourselves closer together in community. However, because the relationships we have must be mutually loving, mutually honest, mutually oriented toward reconciliation, there are moments when we must stop our attempts at reconciliation – temporarily at least. If someone cannot see that they have harmed us, if they refuse to follow advise then we may need time apart. We make them, “as a tax collector,” to us – a person distinct from our community, someone we cannot currently productively associate with. However, the promise of Christ is that no one is permanently out of reach.

            Though the relationship that once was may never be restored, something like it can be found again. Even if it is a simple acceptance from both parties that wrong was done, that the best reconciliation they can give one another is to abstain from interacting with one another, even this is better than quietly fomenting our hurt in the dark. The ties that bind us together are not always tightly wound, and though we ideally would see ourselves in close and loving relationships with one another, sometimes this is not possible. However, the work must be put in to preserve what we have, to strive to work to fix rather than throw away. We are given steps to follow toward reconciliation, we cannot deny a single one of them.

            Seek community, seek love, and seek to make amends in the face of all wrongs. – Amen.