The Gift

Proper 27B

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
Psalm 127
Hebrews 9:24-28
Mark 12:38-44

 

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is pure; that, when he comes again with power and great glory, we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom; where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 http://travel.davidmbyrne.com/bern-switzerland/old-town-rooftops-bern-switzerland/

I asked our teen confirmands a few weeks ago why Jesus died on the cross. With characteristic candor, one of them responded: "I don't believe that Jesus had to die. We were just too dumb to notice the love that he was trying to teach us, and so we killed him." Today's Gospel lesson might illustrate her point. Let's first put it into a more contemporary setting:

Imagine a huge cathedral, awe-inspiring and magnificent in its architecture, both inside and out. It's stewardship Sunday, and this cathedral congregation is celebrating a successful campaign. Everyone is so focused on their celebration that they don't even notice that Jesus has quietly slipped into the building. He takes a seat up at the High Altar in the ornately-carved Bishop's Chair. He's watching everyone very intently, a concerned look on his face.

Since it is Stewardship Sunday, people are bringing their annual pledges forward to lay them down on the altar, like we do at St. Andrew's.  But instead of bringing them forward in silent prayer, this congregation asks every individual or family to come forward one by one and to shout out the amount of their pledge for all to hear. Now that sounds pretty shocking to us, but that's how it worked at the Temple in Jesus' day.

People brought metal coins to the Temple treasury, and as they threw them into the special recipients, the metal made a loud clanging sound for all to hear. The more coins there were, the louder they rang out as they went in. I'd like the children to help us today, so that we can get a feel for how this ritual might sound in our imaginary cathedral setting. As I mention each group of givers who come forward, I’ll motion for the children and youth to knock loudly on their pews, according to the amount of the gift. The bigger the gift, the louder you knock. OK?

First, the clergy come up to put their offerings on the altar. Jesus notices their costly silk and velvet vestments. They move with ease, giving Jesus a wink as they call out a comfortable sum, their voices firm, as if they think that they are in control of what happens in that place. [loud knocking]

Next, Jesus watches while men in designer suits and women in fur coats come forward, comfortably wrapped in luxury. They call out quite a large sum of money. [louder knocking]

Next, Jesus watches a group of close friends come forward together, each riding high on a cloud of popularity. They live to earn the approval of others, and they pat one another on the back as they each call out the exact same amount. [knocking]

Jesus then watches as the faithful, active members of this cathedral come forward. Jesus watches as they move through the building as easily and as comfortably as they cross their own living rooms. They each call out an honorable sum. [knocking] The gifts continue like this for a while, big gifts making lots of noise [knocking] and smaller gifts not so much. [quiet knocking]

At that moment, the heavy wooden doors of the cathedral swing open, and a young woman and her pre-school-aged daughter slip into the shadows at the back of the building. No one in the congregation even notices the newcomers. No one, that is, except Jesus, who leans forward imperceptibly and waits. Jesus knows and loves this woman—just like Jesus knows and loves all those people trying so desperately to prove their worth to God and one another up at the cathedral altar. Jesus knows that this woman used to live in the neighborhood, until her troubles started.

First, her daughter got sick, and the woman had to miss work to care for her. She missed too many days, and her boss let her go. Then she couldn't pay rent and they were evicted from their home. An old payday loan debt recently sucked away what remained of her possessions. The woman and her daughter used to come to the cathedral food pantry, but some cash went missing after their last visit, and the clergy told her that they would call the police if she ever came back. She didn’t take that money, but she could tell that she didn’t count for anything in their eyes, so she stayed away.

Until today. Quietly, this struggling woman takes a deep breath, gathers her courage, and heads up the aisle toward Jesus and the altar, grasping her daughter tightly by the hand. Reaching into her bag, the woman takes out two crumpled dollar bills and a few food stamps and quickly plops them down on the altar. The little girl looks up at her mother and then at Jesus. She is holding a threadbare and well-loved Teddy bear. Noticing a whimpering baby in the front pew to her right, the little girl steps toward the baby and holds out her bear. "Here," she says, "this will make you feel better." She and her mother smile at the baby, and then at Jesus. Turning, they walk back down the aisle into their grim reality. There has been no knocking on the pews for their quiet offerings. No one but Jesus has even noticed them.

Tears in his eyes, Jesus rises from the bishop's chair. He calls out to this church full of his disciples:

"Look, everyone! Look! Don't you see them? Open your eyes!"

The congregation gapes at Jesus, suddenly aware of his presence among them.

 "All of you have given from your abundance—big, easy gifts," Jesus shouts.

Pointing toward the backs of the woman and her daughter as the heavy church door closes behind them, he cries:

 "This woman and her daughter have laid down their whole life here before you, 

and you didn’t see it.”

Jesus stands, and with his tears now falling freely, he walks resolutely down the cathedral aisle, and out the same door through which the woman and her daughter just passed. He follows the woman down into the shadows cast by the spires of the grand cathedral, hoping perhaps that the cathedral members might someday join him there.

 When Mark’s Jesus left the Temple over two thousand years ago, he too turned toward the shadows, marching resolutely toward the Cross, where he gave his whole life, just like the widow did. He stretched out his arms in love for the whole world, in the costliest gift of them all.

When we stand against the hatred, fear, and violence that deny the God-given dignity of every person, God sees God’s own love reflected in us. When we risk seeing things that we’d rather not see and when we risk following Jesus into places that we’d rather not go, then Jesus sees his own gift in us, too. When we risk being seen, when we risk being rejected for the sake of love, then Jesus recognizes himself in us, his disciples. On earth, those seeking power and control may not notice at first, but I guarantee that all the angels in heaven are knocking loudly on their pews in celebration. [loud knocking]

 

 

From Caleb the Camel

Proper 23B

Job 23:1-9, 16-17 Psalm 22:1-15 Hebrews 4:12-16 Mark 10:17-31

Lord, we pray that your grace may always precede and follow us, that we may continually be given to good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

 

        You’re going to have to do some powerful imagining, but I’d like for you to imagine that I am a camel.

Yes, my name is Caleb the Camel, and I belong to David bar Benjamin, the master who decided not to follow Jesus in the story that Deacon Delinda just read. Before I tell my version of the story, I need to set the record straight on one thing. Those preachers who claim that the “Eye of the Needle” is the name of a gate in Jerusalem are just plain wrong. I've been in and out of all those gates, and there is no gate by that name. Therefore, on behalf of camels everywhere, I object to Jesus’ exaggerated remark about shoving us through a tiny needle hole. This ridiculous image is an affront to our dignity. Plus, it sounds very painful.

I am rather flattered that Jesus noticed me, though. I was right there when my master ran up to Jesus, so I saw the whole thing. We had been out inspecting one of my master’s properties earlier that day. My master has lots of properties—5 estates, I think, spread out all over the region. My brothers and I haul piles of sweet dates, and wine, and grain, and olives for him all over the Galilee. But we don’t mind. Master David feeds us well. He’s not like his father Benjamin.

Benjamin was a greedy man. He always had his eye out for getting something for nothing. Whenever a poor farmer couldn’t pay his taxes to King Herod, Benjamin was right there to buy up his land for almost nothing. Whenever there was a drought, or a farmer got sick, Benjamin was right there, too, promising a few sheckles for the poor guy’s home. He never forgave anyone’s debt. That’s how the family got so much property. Then, to top it off, Benjamin would underpay his workers—and underfeed his animals. He wouldn’t even let widows and orphans collect the few stalks of grain that the harvesters had dropped on the edges of his fields. Can you imagine?! Don’t tell anyone, but I used to spit on him whenever his back was turned. When old Benjamin died, we were all relieved.

My master David, he’s different. He was always a good little boy, slipping me a sweet date from his pocket when no one was looking. He was always trying to please his exacting father by doing everything just right: going with him to collect and count the tenants' rent; listening to all his father’s bragging; watching in silence as his father shouted insults to the beggars and foreigners at the gate. David spent hours in the synagogue studying scripture. He thought God was like his father Benjamin, full of rules and punishments. I remember him reciting the commandments and saying long prayers as we rode along from one property to the next. He was determined to earn God’s love, but his prayers never seemed to make him happy.

 I really felt sorry for him when his father matched him up with that grumbler Leah, just because she came with a huge dowry. His wife has been a thorn in David’s side his whole adult life. She’s always spending money, always putting him down for going to the synagogue. She’s never satisfied with what he provides for her. And now he’s got three daughters to provide for, too, and no sons. Still, nobody understands why he looks so sad and stressed out all the time.

“He’s the richest guy in town,” they scoff. “He can have anything he wants. He’s got no worries.” But they don’t know the half of it.

You should have seen the look on David’s face when that leper came running into town, shouting to everyone that the Messiah had come and healed him of his horrible disease. It was the first time in years that I’ve seen David’s eyes light up with hope. He became obsessed with finding this Jesus from Nazareth, and we spent days on the road looking. When we finally found him, David nearly jerked my neck off pulling on the reigns, and he leapt off my back before I could kneel all the way down. I couldn’t see what he was so excited about. There was just a young guy in a dusty robe on the side the road, surrounded by a bunch of bearded men who smelled like fish, and a few women who didn’t look so proper, if you know what I mean. But David, he ran down the road after this guy and kneeled down before him like this teacher was some kind of king. All I could think was that David’s wife was going to yell at him for getting his fancy cloak all dirty.

This Jesus really seemed to understand my master, though. Now, anybody could see that my master was desperate, and that he was rich. But Jesus seemed to see beyond that, right into his soul. Jesus knew that David was there to be healed, that his heart was just as scarred as the skin of that leper was. Jesus was somehow both hard and compassionate at the same time—truthful, you know? He wouldn’t let my master get away with any of that rule-following, goodie-two-shoes nonsense that he had been living by. “No one is good but God alone,” Jesus warned. Jesus even seemed to know about David’s father Benjamin—how he made a fortune off of the backs of the poor and the weak. “You shall not defraud,” Jesus added to his list of ways to live. Even I know that’s not one of the ten commandments! My master’s whole inheritance—his very being--is woven through with old Benjamin’s defrauding, though, that’s for sure. I even heard a scornful chuckle escape from the mouth of one of the tenant farmers standing nearby when Jesus pointed that out.

It was hard for me to watch the hope in my master’s eyes die out as Jesus spoke. How could he sell everything and give the money to the poor and then head off down the road with these fishermen? What about his obligations, his lands, his inheritance, his wife, his daughters who needed him? Who would take care of me and all the other animals? It would be like my master had died—died to his family, died to his dreams, traded in his whole life for a new one. Didn’t Jesus understand that? And then that unpleasant remark about it being easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter God’s Kingdom. Ouch. Even the beggars standing around were shocked to hear that. If the well-dressed, educated classes weren’t accepted …. then who was?

It hurt to see my master turn away in despair, without even the strength to climb up on my back. He just plodded down the road toward home. From far off, I heard Jesus still talking, calling out, “For human beings, it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible. … Many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” These words have been haunting me, especially at night, when the stars seem to hang so close, like jewels up there in the heavens.

They remind me of a story I heard as a young camel. Let me see if I can remember it:

 Once upon a time, there was a she-camel whose fur was woven in with silver stars from head to tail.[1] Those hundreds of shiny stars gleamed and glistened and jingled when she walked, and when the sun shone down upon her, she blinded you with her beauty. The trouble was, she was lonely. None of the other plain brown camels wanted anything to do with her. When they saw her, all they could think of was that she shone with the light of all the stars, while they were covered in dust. Life was a competition, one that they had lost, one that she had won merely by being born. One day, when she was crying all by herself at the oasis, a wise old palm tree bent down to her and gave her some difficult advice.

“Cut off your stars and give one to all of the other camels,” the old tree suggested, “and find your true inheritance. You can all be beautiful together.  You can’t be happy when all of the others are sad. You are a herd, and you all belong together. What affects one of you ultimately affects all of you.”[2]

So the young camel cut off all of her stars but one, and she shared them with the other camels. It was very painful. She bled, and she was left with hundreds of tiny scars. She wasn’t the same. But she found happiness in the joy that she brought to her herd. She found her true inheritance. Now, they all glistened together, and when they ran, it was like the sun danced with joy across the desert.

Oh, wait! Maybe that’s it! Maybe when those camels stood around in a circle, sharing their lives with one another, the light bouncing back and forth from gift to gift, they looked from heaven like the round eye of a silver needle. And when that she-camel walked through the middle of them, with their light shining on her scars, and their heads nodding in loving recognition, it was as if she walked right through the eye of that needle...

See ‘ya later. I’ve got to go and share that story with my master! I hear that Jesus is still out there somewhere healing folks. There’s still time for my master to change his mind. 

[At the announcements, I'm going to ask the children to put star stickers on the adults at the door, and to have them walk under the "eye of the needle," London-bridge style between two teens. They will say to them, "With God, all things are possible."--adapted from Carolyn Brown, found at http://worshipingwithchildren.blogspot.com/2015/09/year-b-proper-23-28th-sunday-in.html.]

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[1] Thank you to Marcus Pfister, The Rainbow Fish, North-South Books, 1999.          

[2] Thank you to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, quoted at http://www.jackyyenga.com/the-spirit-of-ubuntu/.

Be Opened!

Proper 18, Year B
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Psalm 125
James 2:1-10, [11-13], 14-17
Mark 7:24-37

I don't usually have the children come forward for the sermon, but today, I need their help. [To gathered children:] I need you to act out something for the grown-ups today. Show us with your bodies what it looks like to be closed up. When you're closed up, you could be like a roly-poly bug, all rolled up on itself. You could be like a turtle, all withdrawn into its shell. Or a person, hunched over her cell phone, ears blocked by headphones, in a room full of friends. When you're completely closed up, you can't see, or hear, or speak clearly to other people. When you're closed up, you're like a locked door, or a box that no one can open. It's a dark, lonely thing to be closed-up, but it also feels safe, doesn't it? The soft, fragile, treasured parts are hidden away, and all that people can see is the hard, silent outside.

          Whole groups of people, too, can be closed up. They can be turned inward, with their backs to the rest of the world. Children, show us now a closed-up group. Groups can close themselves in with thick walls and tall fences with locked gates. They can put up barbed wire to keep others out, or shoot at them with weapons. Or they can simply make up a special language that you have to know to get in, or special rules that you have to follow to be part of the group. They can divide people up into categories--rich and poor, educated and uneducated, black and white, foreigner and native, male and female, Christian and non-Christian, Democrat and Republican, baby-boomer and millennial--and they can only let people like themselves into their huddle. Closed-up groups can feel safe, too, can't they? They feel comfortable, and easy. Differences can be hard to deal with. Helping people to get along takes work.

          What God wants for us, though, is not to live closed-up lives. God wants us to be open: open to the richness in diversity, open to God's love, open to mercy and forgiveness, open to new life, open to learning new things, open to healing, open to taking risks, open to growth, open to grace.  In today's Gospel, Jesus goes up to the man whose ears and mouth are closed. He takes hold of the man and he cries, "Ephphatha," or "Be opened!" And immediately, the man's ears are opened to hear, and his mouth is opened to speak with others. So children, when I cry, "Ephphatha," I want you to show us what it looks like to be opened up. Show us what it looks like with your body when you go from tense and closed up to relaxed and open to God and to one another.[Thank children and tell them they can sit back down for now, but that I'll need them again later].

 In today's Gospel, even Jesus experiences what it is like to be opened. When Jesus first travels from Israel into strange Gentile country, he is closed up within the culture into which he has been born in human flesh. For Jesus, Scripture is clear that the Children of Israel are God’s chosen people. Of course, God also cares for the Gentiles: the Greeks, the foreigners, those who don't know the Law. But Jesus has been taught that the Jews must be saved first, and then, through them, the rest of the world will be fed with the bread of life. When the Syrophoenecian woman begs him to heal her daughter, Jesus' response echoes coldly from out of the closed box in which he finds himself: He refuses to help a woman who is "other," who is not one of us, who is outside of the Law, outside of his own limited mission.

This woman, however, surprises him. Instead of slinking away, she rattles his box with a clever retort and the powerful love of a brave "tiger-mom" defending her child. That love breaks down the box around Jesus, and he changes his mind. The divine love and healing power within Jesus throw open his closed-up notions and, joining with the mother's great love for her daughter, bring wholeness and healing to the child. Jesus is then empowered to go forward with a new mission—one that is open to the healing of the whole world. "Be opened," he cries to the suffering Gentile man, closed in a silent, lonely world. "Be opened," he cries out to us today—we who are more lonely and divided than ever before.

Here at St. Andrew's, as we begin the program year today with a new commitment to God and to one another, I wonder if we will let Jesus heal us with a risky new openness? There's a great story about medieval knights who used to hold their sword-hand up out of the baptismal waters so that they could continue to use it to fight and kill. They were willing to open up their lives to Christ, just not the hand that kept them safe and powerful. The truth of that story always makes me smile in self-recognition. We all close up parts of ourselves to keep God from meddling with them. For some of us, it might be our wallet that we lock safely away from God's wild generosity. For some of us, it might be our prized sense of superiority that we close up from God's abundant love for every human being. For some of us, it might be our treasured stability and safety that we bundle away from the risks of an encounter with God's life-changing Spirit. I wonder what would change if we opened up our whole selves to Christ and his all-inclusive mission of love?

Years ago, in a hospital in the deep South, there was an elderly white man who was very ill. He was as ornery as could be, and none of the nurses enjoyed caring for him. One nurse, a black man, was a constant recipient of the old man's meanness and racist remarks. He made the nurse's life a living hell every time this nurse came into his room. Soon, the old man was dying. Strangely, it was the African American nurse who volunteered to perform the increasing care that the sick man needed. Amidst a barrage of insults, he would soothe his patient's pain, again and again. This nurse's courageous and deliberate choice did not escape the notice of one of the doctors in the hospital. The concerned doctor offered the nurse a chance to trade off this difficult patient with another staff member, but he turned down the offer, saying that he wanted to care for the old man. Finally, the old man died of his disease. When the doctor came into the room, he saw the nurse bent lovingly over the old man's body, caressing his pale forehead and shedding real tears of grief and love at the man's death. The doctor, who had always been much too busy to pray and much too worldly-wise to contribute to the life of a church, suddenly saw the transforming power of Jesus ripping open the constructs of hatred and pride right before his eyes. In the nurse's Christ-like action, the doctor saw the astounding grace and love of God out in the open for the first time in his life. The doctor's heart was broken open by what he saw. He couldn't stop thinking about it. Before he knew it, the doctor sought out the rector at the church he had been too busy to attend, and he handed her a considerable check. He told her the story of the loving nurse and the old racist, and he explained that he just had to respond somehow to the miracle of grace that he saw in that room. He had to thank God somehow for a love like that in the world.

At different times, we might be the old man, the nurse, or the doctor in this story. Whoever we are, though, we are redeemed by God's self-giving love. When we ask you to give to St. Andrew's, either of your skills, or your money, or your presence with us, we are not asking for you to give it only so that we can balance our budget, or so that we can make a comfortable, closed-in clubhouse for our parish family. That would be to shut ourselves, and God's Church, in a box that is much too small. Instead, we are asking you to give out of thanksgiving—out of amazement—over the divine healing, freeing power that transforms our lives every day. God's love is incredible, when our eyes are open to see it. God's grace is earth-shattering, when our hearts are open to feel it.

That's why we need the children to come forward again and help us. [Wait for them to come up.] Children, I want you to go quickly up and down and around the aisles, and to cry out, "Be Opened!" to everyone in the pews. Wave your arms, make noise, be like Jesus, full of God's power and determination. And the rest of us, as the children bless us with Jesus' transforming words, let's feel those heavy walls come down from inside us and from around us. Let's feel our hearts float free. Let's be opened to God's powerful, life-changing love as it flows in and out of our whole selves, from me to you, and from you to me, from us to others and from others to us. I think we will be surprised at the miracles we see.