There is a bumper sticker that I’m particularly fond of.  I’m sure you’ve seen it. It reads: Well-behaved women rarely make history.   And it’s so true: although the concept can be expanded to include children, men, dogs and horses.  The bottom line is that while good behavior allows at least some people to get on comfortably with their lives without interruption; good behavior demands we live our lives by other people’s rules even though they may not be the wisest, or in the best interests of the planet. 

Because our bible is full of stories about human beings muddling along, we’re always hearing about behaviors, good and bad and everything in between.   Today we hear of Eli, the elderly priest into whose care Hannah had given her young son, Samuel.  In earlier years, Eli had been a fine priest.  He now has two grown priestly sons who are greedy and corrupt, and, even worse, have been desecrating temple sacrifices.   Eli has, in recent years, been keeping his head down for the sake of a quiet life with his sinning sons, when what was needed was for him to ruffle the waters and sort his sons out.   God is not pleased, and Samuel is to be part of the solution.

It’s pretty clear that those Corinthians have also not been well-behaved.   Paul, as their loving yet long-distance spiritual guide, is remonstrating with them.  They have enthusiastically accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, and have completely bought into the idea that their faith has made them free: free, clearly, to live the life of libertines!   Not quite what Paul had in mind!   As he says to them: “While all things are lawful…not all things are beneficial”.

Jesus was not well-behaved: from the perspective of the Jewish authorities; from the perspective of the Romans; or from the perspective of his long-suffering family – remember that scene when they turn up, en masse, to one of his sessions to take him home, but he refuses, publicly and quite rudely.  If Jesus had been well-behaved, we wouldn’t be sitting here together, talking about these things at all.

In today’s Gospel reading, we have Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.  He has been baptized by John the Baptist with the voice from heaven and the dove proclaiming him as the Son of God.  Simon Peter and his brother Andrew have left John the Baptist to follow Jesus instead.  And today, we have them traveling north from the river Jordan to the region of Galilee where there were a number of small villages, Bethsaida and Nazareth among them.   One can only wonder from Nathanael’s snarky comment about nothing good coming out of Nazareth whether they also had rivaling soft ball teams…   Jesus finds Philip, and his invitation is simple, “Follow me”.  And Philip does.  Philip then brings Nathanael to join the group.  It seems likely that Philip knows Nathanael.  We know who Nathanael is because he’s sitting under a fig tree and rabbis were known to sit under fig trees.    If Philip already knew him as a rabbi, perhaps as one of his early teachers, it would explain his surprisingly formal words. It also adds a scholarly dimension to those who followed Jesus.  Yes, they were fishermen and car mechanics by trade, but they were also spiritual junkies, following the latest hip teacher.

Philip’s assessment of Nathanael is that he’ll be interested in Jesus.  “Come and see,” he quite simply invites.  And without more ado, Nathanael does.

“Follow me”, “Come and see”, or maybe it’s quite simply God calling our name: “Samuel, Samuel!”; “Steve, Steve!”; “Liza, Liza!”.   And then it’s up to us, because we have choices with how we live ‘our one wild and precious life’: the wonderful line from Mary Oliver’s poem that Kitty reminded us of last week.

Martin Luther King had choices.  He could have lived a quiet, well-behaved life, but as we know, he chose not to.   I found myself rereading his powerful letter from the Birmingham Jail in 1963 this week: that apology, in the old sense, that defense of non-violent community action in the face of the criticism.  A letter to those eight white religious leaders who called his actions “unwise and untimely”, and deplored the disruption of the marches and sit-ins, that were occurring in Birmingham.   I noticed his grief in his observation of how it was actually the moderates in society who were being the most obstructive to the cause of the African-Americans: they seemed so reasonable, and yet they were causing the movement to lose momentum by their passivity.

I was particularly struck during this reading of his letter by his thoughts on extremism:  a word that has come to be associated with so much violence and fear.  Dr. King, as you remember, explores the idea of Jesus being an extremist: an “extremist in love”, with his commands to ‘”Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.”

We Episcopalians tend not to go in for much extremism. We are generally quite well-behaved.  And there are wonderful things about this.  We treasure well-ordered liturgies that nurture, heal and sustain us.   Our preference is for things to go smoothly, and we like it that way.   We are welcoming. We don’t make waves.  We might not have so much choice if we worshipped together down in the busy streets of a town. Up on our lofty hill, we can enjoy the tranquility and sanctuary of our lovely church and grounds.

Anything wrong with that?  I think there’s a very strong case for our existence and what we have and do offer to the world.  My only thought is: maybe there might be a way to not only keep offering those precious gifts of beautiful liturgy, warm companionship, and sacred sanctuary, but also offer something even more.

Each one of us has heard God calling our name.  Each one of has shown up.  Last Sunday, each one of us reaffirmed our faith in the words of the Baptismal Covenant.  And we answered those powerful five questions with the words, “I will, with God’s help”.  Those five questions that went to the heart of what following Jesus demands of us: to continue in teaching and fellowship; to persevere to resist evil; to proclaim the Good News; to seek and serve God in all persons; and to strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being.

I don’t think those questions are naïve or anachronistic: they are inspired by the Gospel of Jesus, they are written for our age, and they invite our engagement.    As Martin Luther King reminds us, Jesus calls us to be extremists in love.  What would the issues that divide our country look like from that perspective?   Could we rise to the challenge of holding each other in love while struggling with complicated issues that cross lines of faith and party to which there are no simple answers?  Immigration and healthcare reform, marriage, abortion, global warming, guns, free trade, government regulation: the list goes on and on.

What do you think?   At the very least, it’s an idea we might talk about…

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Christ (fresco), 1477.

Christmas is a mystery. It’s the mystery of the incarnation. It’s not that it makes no sense. It’s more that it makes an uncanny kind of sense. Or perhaps, the nonsense that it makes continues to arrest and engage us, until we are more capable of ambiguity and ambivalence, more open to multiple meanings. To entertain the mystery of God’s relation to humanity requires a willingness, to venture into what Yeats calls the land of unlikeness (H 464), and as John the Evangelist says, there to find ourselves at home (John1:11).

The Christmas story works this mystery within and among us, from our earliest hearing of it, through our yearly appreciation of it, in our  pondering of its scenes and characters, in our wonder at its myriad implications for living a life of faith, hope, and love. This story shapes our lives. Our continual appropriation of it yields the richest rewards imaginable, and even more, better than we can ask or imagine. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.

Have you been to the Smithsonian to see the Hope diamond, with a capital H?  In a darkened exhibit room, the gemstone is lit from beneath. Viewers rotate slowly around its gleaming radiance, wide-eyed, to see its splendor from every possible angle. Meanwhile, its light is refracted around the room, making faces and bodies sparkle, dappling walls and ceiling. The Christmas story is like that. It’s hard to imagine how such a beauty could have been hiding in the mud, encased in rock underground, for so long. It’s a wonder that someone learned enough to recognize the signs pointing in its direction, that someone spotted the diamond in the rough, that someone unearthed it. The Christmas story is like that.

The capital Hope diamond was reportedly cursed. Its financial value has  prompted acts of greed and treachery. In contrast, we can see that the Christmas story is another kind of hope diamond, lower case h, a gleaming gem of hope, and it is reportedly blessed. Indeed, it has been a blessing for ages and for multitudes. Its value is purely priceless. It has prompted countless acts of generosity and goodwill. Instead of being hoarded by a few, it has been shared by many, having made its way around the world.

The story tells of God’s presence and power, God’s sympathy and patience, God’s continual enthusiasm for the human enterprise and for the planetary fulfillment that depends upon its outcome. Heaven and nature are singing a duet because they are conjoined. God and humanity are bound together in common cause. There is no part of creation beyond the redemptive reach of this salvific alliance. The wise are humbled. The humble are enlightened. The poor are enriched. The rich are found to be in want.

Beasts and angels, God’s otherkind, are in the know and on the team, working in their distinct capacities to support God’s providence and purpose for humankind. We’re the ones who need to get the picture. We’re the ones who can’t see the sparkle through the mud. In his book, entitled Earth Community, Earth Ethics, Lutheran theologian, Larry Rasmussen observes that “the language of heaven thus works to name the vision of earth redeemed,” (12).  And Luther himself calls nature God’s disguise (Ibid, 279). So, of course, heaven and nature sing in tune.

As the Christmas story has made its way through the succeeding centuries and cultures, there have been many interpretations of its meaning, along with some inevitable distortions of its value. Here are a couple of common ones that miss the mark. If we can just work an alliance with God and then endure life’s slings and arrows, then we’ll escape one day to heaven, and to hell with all the rest. Or how about this one? Long ago and far away, there was a day of creation. Then God went behind the moon. Later, God sent Jesus in the act of redemption. Then they both went behind the moon. Sometime in the distant future, they will reappear for a judgment day, to mete out reward or punishment. In the meantime, we must do the best we can to increase the odds of receiving the carrot instead of the stick.

These common misinterpretations of God’s relation to humanity make no sense at all, when viewed from the fullness of the Christmas story and from the testimony celebrating God’s Christmas gift in the mystery of incarnation.  Why on earth would a God who goes to the trouble to give himself into our hands and our hearts, to behave so inconstantly? It is of the utmost consequence that we grasp and proclaim the sheer grace of God’s constant love for us and continual self-giving to us. That too is the mystery of the incarnation.

Also, it is essential that we assess God’s particular gift of freewill to humankind, the gift that deep ecologists have come to call the moral consciousness of the planet. We must weigh the implications of our choice. We are free to receive God’s Christmas gift or not. But it is only by our free reception of the gift that we can be fulfilled as human creatures and so also that all creation can thus attain its fulfillment in God’s providence and purpose. A lot is riding on our choice!

Anglican theologian, John Polkinghorne, says it this way in his book, entitled Serious Talk: Science and Religion in Dialogue. “The new creation will be something different…for it is the transmutation of the world consequent upon its free return to its Creator,” (107). It is the message of the Christmas story, and the mysterious gift of God’s incarnation, that presents us with the invitation, with the unique opportunity. We may have opened the gift. We may have tried it on, to see how it fits. Now we need to wear it constantly, as a festal garment. We must grow into it, until it is we who are conformed to Christ.

And if, in our freedom, we reject the gift or set it aside with indifference, we cut ourselves off from that transformative possibility. Then, not only are we lost to the creativity of life itself, but also, what life might become is diminished. Honest to God, you’d think, wouldn’t you, with that kind of choice confronting us, that we’d have all gotten it right by now, at least in theory, if not yet perfect in practice? Instead, there are still the all too familiar and perverse attempts to game the system and to beat the house. It cannot be done, thank heaven!

In the beloved scripture appointed for this holy night, the Old Testament readings are addressed to the people of Israel, in general, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem in particular. The New Testament readings use the faith tradition of Judaism to address the Hellenistic world of the Roman Empire. Even so, stop to notice that every one has universal intent. They are clear that God’s purpose extends to all nations and peoples. They are convinced that creation rejoices to participate, all of it part of the universal providence and purpose.  As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, in her book, entitled An Altar in the World, Christ proves to us that “matter matters to God,” (62).

Christ comes, as Rasmussen puts it, “so that earth is not damned by our presence but may rejoice in it,” (Ibid, 179). The gift of the Christ child gives us the full measure of God’s hope in us. Irenaeus, third century bishop of Lyons, observes that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive,” that is, in full accord with God’s creative will. The name of that fully alive human being is Jesus, born in Bethlehem to Mary of Nazareth, his earthly father Joseph the carpenter.

While it is undoubtedly true that creation extends beyond our capacity to comprehend it, so also it is true that, as a species, our comprehension has been enlarged considerably, through the centuries. We can now appreciate our planet as a whole, as seen from space, as a relatively small habitat in a vaster universe, as an  ecosystem. We can now appreciate, in an expanding worldview, our growing allegiance to an ever more interdependent global community and commons, however endangered by dysfunction.

The good news of the alliance between heaven and nature means that there is hope for us. There is hope incarnate in Christ. There is hope incarnate in those who receive the Christmas gift, unpack it, don the festal garment, and keep the feast of thanksgiving for the gift. There is hope for otherkind, who await our awakening to obedience, with baited breath. Ecologist David Korten wrote a book entitled The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community. In it he rejects a predatory reading of evolutionary process. Instead, he observes, “the species that survive and thrive are those that learn to sustain themselves in ways that simultaneously serve the needs of the whole. The defining challenge for each new species is to find its place of service, a challenge we humans have yet to meet,” (309). Jesus Christ meets the challenge and encourages us to rise to it. All who are in Christ, by grace through faith, will do so, for the sake of the world God so loves.

The way the gift of the incarnation make sense is if God intends humanity and creation, that is, this life and this world, to be redeemed and renewed. As Jesus grows up to teach us, God’s hope is that his will be done on earth as in heaven. God gives us every resource we need, to receive and to appropriate the gift, to respond with everything we’ve got, to give back as we’ve been given. We are buoyed by God’s ready presence, here and now, immanuel, God with us in the endeavor. For all of it is God’s own, into which we are being called as full partners. God asks that we align our hopes with his, for heaven’s sake and for earth’s.

For those of us here tonight, having lived through a pretty grim first decade of the twenty-first century, we hear this Christmas story, and we receive this Christmas gift, which is the hope for an earth communion, in which all parts function in service to the whole organism, which eco-theologian Sallie McFague has called the body of God, God’s very incarnation. For it is God’s nature to keep on giving, and it is the potential of our created nature to become as Christ. Let us practice the incarnation with gratitude, as our part in God’s Christmas gift to the world. AMEN

The Rev. Dr. Katherine M. Lehman+
St. Bede’s, Menlo Park

We invite you to join the clergy, the choir, and harpist Annie Clark, for a lovely, candlelit service for all ages. We will retell the Christmas story in poetry and scripture, with congregational carols and the inspired Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten.

Following the service, there will be a festive reception in the parish hall.

Bankers, trading, investing, and turning a profit?  Now, here’s a parable for our times!  Farming and agricultural practices in first century Palestine may stretch us a bit, but this one? No problem!

It’s pretty straight forward, right? The master, before he leaves on a trip, gives five talents to one slave, two to second, and one to the third: to each according to his ability.   The first two go straight off to trade them and make a profit; the third buries his talent in the ground. On the master’s return, the first two proudly display the doubling of their talents and are rewarded; the third offers the unimproved talent back and is thrown into the outer darkness, complete with frightening sound effects.  Seems fair and reasonable: one should after all work a little harder; invest one’s treasure somewhere useful.  I would be remiss, this stewardship season, not mention the possibility of investing in one’s beloved church, for instance!

You might not be surprised to hear that changing cash into gold bars which can then be hidden somewhere safely has become a popular idea in recent years!  And should one not feel up to digging a hole in the back yard, it is actually quite easy to buy a bed with a built in safety box.   My favorite that I came across was a cartoon of a bed stuffed with bank notes, with the caption reading: “quilt edged securities”!

However, the thought of being thrown into the fiery furnace is enough to make one pause, so let’s pause to consider God’s teaching for us today.  Jesus never gives us parables to reassure us of our right actions and beliefs.  If understanding a parable seems straightforward, we’ve almost certainly got it wrong.

Our collect for today instructs us clearly:  our duty is to engage actively with our scripture.  So, here goes!

Let’s get some context around our parable.  It is found very similarly in both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.  In Matthew, it is a parable in a series of examples that all consider how we should behave in words and actions as we wait for the arrival of the Son of Man, that apocalyptic figure whose coming will presage the end of the age.

In the light of that positioning, this parable would seem to be suggesting that we shouldn’t just sit around waiting for the end times:  if time is short, all the more urgency to be responsible stewards of our own, and other people’s treasure.  This is no time to be sitting around being frightened and doing nothing.

Now let’s see if we can get some social context for this investment tale.  Let’s see if we can fill the story out a bit.  And for this I’m indebted to a book John Oda-Burns recommended by William Herzog. Our parable is set within a great household of an urban elite, an oikos, which along with the polis, or city, and the imperium or kingdom, were the framework of society.   The great households managed the activities of the peasant farmers; the cities operated as the centers of an interconnected web of large households, being controlled by the dominant families; and the kingdom was a collection of these cities held together by historical, economic and religious common ground.

The organizing unit, as you see, is the great household.  The master of which needed a substantial staff to manage his affairs.  The master’s job was to see and be seen, and so he would often be away from home, doing just that.   There was much room and incentive for members of his staff to prove their competency, and rise in rank and privilege.

Of course, while there are similarities between our time and theirs, there are also important differences.  In American society, being financially successful is seen to be a good thing.  If push came to shove, don’t most of us want to be comfortable?  Don’t most of us enjoy a bit of luxury every now and then.  And there’s always that lingering Calvinist narrative of our country’s history that suggests that those who flourish in the world are being rewarded by God for their righteous living, whereas those who struggle are undeserving of God’s favor.

In first century Palestine, that was not how things were seen.  It was believed that there was only so much ‘good’ to go around, and if someone was seen to be making a profit, it was clearly at someone else’s expense and pain, and was therefore a bad thing.

Masters of large households were all too aware of this theory of ‘limited good’, even though they may not have called it that, which was why they used their trusted retainers to get their hands and reputations dirty by acting as the master’s financial managers – as in our parable.

And how did they do it?  We know our master was gone for a ‘long time’: what were our investors/traders up to?  They had begun with an extremely large amount of capital (one talent being made up of 6000 denari, with a denari being the daily compensation for a day laborer).  Herzog tells us that the standard investment practice of the bankers of the day was to lend farmers the money with which to buy seed to sow in their fields.  Ideally, seed would be stored from one year’s harvest to sow for the next, but conditions didn’t always allow for that, and the farmers were routinely overly taxed by both the Temple and the Romans.   The money lent for seed was at the cost of a very high interest rate, anything from 60% to 200%, and if the farmer defaulted, the land could be seized by the lender, making the master and his household even richer.

So, at this point, one has to start questioning why Jesus, Palestinian peasant for all Palestinian peasants, should be using the successful and manifestly unfair lending practices of the elite ruling class to teach his peasant listeners about the right way to behave as they wait for the appearance of the Son of Man?

And if that isn’t enough to make you start wondering if you haven’t wandered into quicksand, let me add another confusing thread to this story.  There was another version of this parable, found in the apocryphal Gospel of the Nazoreans and discussed by the third century historian and biblical scholar Eusebius.  In this version of the story, the first servant squandered his talents on harlots and flute girls and is cast into prison by the returning master; the second multiplied his gain and, wait for it, is merely rebuked; and the third, who hid the talent, is accepted with joy!

From a peasant’s point of view, the servant who refused to participate in standard practices of robbing the poor by burying the talent, is clearly the hero of the story.  Although it has been argued that it would have been even better if instead of burying the talent, the servant had come up with a just scheme, perhaps of micro-lending where the farmers could have benefitted as well

I mentioned the book written by William Herzog before, let me now give you its title:  “Parables as Subversive Speech”.  And having gone that far, you can also have the title of the chapter about our parable of the talents:  ‘The Vulnerability of the Whistle Blower’.  Herzog suggests that the reason why the third servant is thrown into the outer darkness is because he exposes the heartless and cruel master and the unjustness of the system.

So now where are you in your understanding of what Jesus was trying to teach in this parable?  I hope that that your curiosity is aroused, and that you will keep thinking about it!  You might have thought it was an easy one:  I don’t think it is.  I’ve done quite a lot of the legwork for you: now it’s your turn.  See what happens if you keep thinking about it!  We can carry on talking about it in coffee hour.

You can take it home with you!I leave you with some lines written by the Swiss philosopher, Henri-Frederic Amiel in 1885:  in the face of the end times, whenever and however they happen, and whatever they are, they seem appropriate:

Life is short and we do not have much time

to gladden the hearts of those who are

traveling the dark way with us.

Oh, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.

Amen

Deut 34:1-12; Ps 90:1-6, 13-17; 1 Thess 2:1-8; Matt 22: 34-46                                              

You know, I think there must be something in the air: in the Middle East, in Europe, and here at home, in the US.   The people are finding their voice.  They’re gathering in large groups:  sometimes peacefully, sometimes not.   There’s questioning.  There’s complaining.   There’s resistance.  Some oppressive regimes have toppled; others have not.  Some are reshaping themselves as they becoming more responsive to the prevailing mood.    Here in the US, first we had the appearance of the Tea Party. And now, there is the developing Occupy Wall Street movement.

As some of you know, after many years of procrastination, I applied for US citizenship this summer.  After some busy form filling, some serious finger printing, and an interview, my application has been deemed successful, and my official swearing in ceremony is next week.   I did have to study for the Civics Test, which I found very pleasing. While there were many things I found interesting and want to do more follow up with (like finding more out about the fascinating Benjamin Franklin), there was a phrase that I found extraordinarily powerful in its implications and its vision, and it is:   “We the People”.

Setting out to speak this morning, I really wanted to get into the poetry of Rumi and Hafiz, and talk about living an passionate, engaged love for God: one of my favorite things to think about.   But it was not to be:  The phrase ‘We the people’ and what’s going on around us demanded my attention:  somehow Moses being taken up the mountain to get that amazing view, and the two great commandments, the concept of ‘We the People’, and current events seem to be whirling around together.  So let’s see where the journey takes us.

In owning the We-ness of the citizenry of the US, we are declaring that we have an agreement between us: a social contract of shared benefits and responsibilities.  We will exercise our rights and work together for the good of society.  We elect our local, state and federal leaders.  We can also vote with our money and our feet.  We can write letters, make petitions, find ways for our voices to be heard.

I can’t help wondering how many of us have been involving ourselves.  I wonder how much many of us have been paying attention. Certainly as someone who could have been participating more actively over the last thirty years, I have no legs to stand on here.

One way to measure involvement is to look at voter statistics for any year.  It’s no surprise to see that a higher percentage of the eligible population vote in elections that include that of the president:  for those years between 50 and 60 per cent get out and vote.  For intervening years, voter turnout out can be far, far smaller.

I look at that, and I wonder why the numbers are so low and I think we can all come up with the answers between us:  busy lives; disenchantment with government; disengagement; sense of powerlessness; complacency; letting other people get on with it.

The problem is that we not only have low voter participation, but that many of us are really irritated with how things have been going in this country.  There are armies of fingers being pointed at government, politicians, banks and financial institutions, the 1%, the 54%, the 99%.   We saw the Enron debacle, we’ve seen the bank and corporations tottering, we’ve seen the bailouts, the buyouts and the folding.  We’ve heard of their risky and questionable trading practices. We learnt of the Madoff scandal. We’ve seen the collapse of the housing and the jobs market.   So many Americans have lost jobs, homes, and pensions. So many struggle.

And I wonder where ‘we the people’ were in the decades that this situation has taken to emerge.   Did we simply step out of the conversation?   I think many of us did. Expressed very simplistically, I think institutions that we trusted lost contact with their responsibilities to the people and the environment.  With our complicity, profit was pursued at any cost.   And I think there was a mistaken belief that unbridled capitalism would be good for everyone. And it’s not okay that those we trusted with our futures, have been, as Reuters’ columnist David Rohde writes, operating a “vast, computerized casino where staggering fortunes can be won or lost in minutes, with taxpayers left holding the bag.”

Now we know better, although we may not agree on how to fix things.   There is room for us to get back into the conversation, and we must.   Katharine Rhodes Henderson, President of Auburn Theological Seminary writes:

Many across the economic spectrum are wrestling with how to find our way back to valuing the public good over individualism; a just economy over unbridled greed; compassion enacted through public policy.

I think the Occupy Wall Street developments are worth noticing.  The press has been having a good time trying to find ‘newsworthy’ things to photograph and say about them.  There are some who think it worthwhile to demonize the group.  From my reading I am quite impressed by the level of diversity represented within the assembling crowds, the attention to organization, the willingness to listen to each voice, and the good behavior of the masses.   I love the idea of Roberts Rules of Order being translated into a series of hand gestures: actually a very old idea, but sometimes old ideas can be highly effective!

One of the organizers of Occupy Wall Street, Marina Sitirin explains:

We have been excluded from all conversations, and the results have been disastrous. What we’re doing is opening space and trying to spark people’s imaginations as to what participation in society could mean and what it could look like. What this will look like and what people want has yet to be determined, because we have only just begun to talk to each other.

I think our Gospel today with its two great commandments, calls us to go up the mountain and remind ourselves of the enormity of our vision:  God’s vision for our world, where we can know God in all things, and love God in all things.

“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

And then, Jesus tells us we have to do the really hard one:  love our neighbor as ourself.  That demands so much more of us.   Perhaps most of all, it demands that we stop pointing fingers at others.  We are all complicit in the current state of our nation.  And the Gospel demands that we step back into the conversation. It’s time to join with our representatives, our politicians, our bankers, our religious, judicial, educational, corporate leaders.  We need to listen and we need to be in conversation.  We the People need to find our voice.  It is a voice of love and respect for all things.  It is a vulnerable voice filled with the holy, and it is there for us find.

Today we will dedicate the courtyard renovation, the design of which was meant to provide a space that reflects our appreciation of the great outdoors, our elemental home and our primal sanctuary. The psalm says it lyrically, and Francis preached it eloquently, that creation is the proclamation of its Creator.

The plants in the courtyard are native to the Mediterranean region, and compatible regions, such as this peninsula. They provide a link between the habitats familiar to Jesus, Paul, Francis and our own. And the sheltered walkways, around the inner courtyard, are reminiscent of monastic architecture in moderate climates, such as theirs and ours.

To top it all off, the gospel reading today is the one of the vineyard parables, set at harvest time. California is covered with vineyards. The Bishop’s Ranch is set amongst those outside Healdsburg. This time of year there is a constant stream of trucks, bearing bins, brimful of warm grapes, from the fields to the wineries, where they will be crushed and fermented. Watch for them on the freeways, and give thanks.

Considering our familiarity with the horticultural, viticultural, and sociocultural settings of the lessons, let’s appreciate what they are saying to us in words, to set alongside the nonverbal gospel that creation offers us. We start with the rules that form the basis of society. We call them the ten commandments. They have been summarized as the great commandment. Love God above all and neighbor as self.

As each new school year begins, the first order of business is to review the ground rules. Why do we call them that? It’s because these are the basics, the foundation for everything else we will accomplish. We think of the ten commandments in the same way. If we observe these rules, whatever else we attempt will be built upon a firm foundation. If we disregard them, anything we attempt will be built on shifting sand and will eventually collapse.

It is worth our notice that these ground rules are proscriptive, except for one. They are stated in the negative. Thou shalt not. The rhetoric puts the emphasis on avoiding the danger consequent upon wrongdoing. The exception is the positive good that accrues from Sabbath observance. By singling out this commandment, the rhetoric implies that it has primacy. Indeed, it appears as the capper of the creation story. So it is the source of the grace, the experience of blessing, that enables us to avoid danger by obeying the other rules.

What Sabbath observance does is remind us that we are free recipients of God’s grace. The blessings we enjoy are God-given. We didn’t work for them. We didn’t earn them. We simply enjoy them. Thus Sabbath observance teaches us gratitude for life, ourselves part of creation, freely given and gratefully received.

And it’s not only the goods of creation by which we are blessed, but also the goods of community. For we are all born inescapably into community. In this Sabbath observance, we gather as members of the community of a new exodus, as people of the resurrection. We also have inherited God’s promises. We also are called to the privilege of God’s service. The value of the assets we have been given, to enjoy in this faith community, we share as trustees and shareholders in redemption.

Anyone who is familiar with California viticulture knows that sometimes landowners lease their land to vintners, who grow grapes on it, harvest them, and by contract, share a portion of the proceeds with the landowner. Noone would argue with the typical arrangement. But in Matthew’s parable, there is an absentee landlord, always risky, and the tenants have forgotten the ground rules. They are brazen enough to try to get away with murder.

The punch line, from Jesus’ mouth, cuts through it all. God can and will choose anyone who will obey the ground rules, so as to bear fruit. The warning is clear. Neither Israel nor the church can take their election for granted. The elect are those who, when called by God, choose to obey and serve, yielding lifegiving fruit, gratefully returning God’s portion. That’s how creation works. That’s how the ground rules, observed by the faithful, yield God’s harvest of goodness.

I hope we have come to understand the larger lesson of the vineyard image, in the sense of the earth being God’s pleasant planting, and humankind being its tenants. As such, we are accountable to the creator and to one another. As we are told in Genesis, we are to tend the terrestrial garden, to return a grateful portion to the creator, by reinvesting in earth’s natural capital, and to share its yield amongst ourselves. It works for everyone, when we obey the ground rules.

Instead, sadly, we have disregarded them, denying God’s claim upon us and our claim upon one another, arguing over who has title to what portion of the property and its yield. Needless to say, this isn’t working to the benefit of all the tenants. Instead it is the source of our continual conflict. We reap what we sow.

As we confess, repent and amend our ways, God’s bountiful mercy returns us to the ground rules, to begin again, to do it until we get it right. These lessons remind us that our care for creation is integrally related to our care for one another. We are to tend and serve both gardens, the earth itself and the human community. They are meant to be cultivated in a bountiful reciprocity, a self-generating ecology, together making the most of what is God-given, as a way of celebrating the gift and the Giver of all.

Christians are called by God to serve this purpose and to invite others into this service. Paul is an example. Paul was born to privilege. From his father, he inherited Roman citizenship. From his mother, he inherited Jewish faith. He was educated in the rabbinic tradition. He could have made it in Jerusalem or Damascus or Rome. Instead, he counted the call of God in Christ to be of surpassing worth. He spent his life in preaching the gospel to anyone who would listen. He spoke of the joys bestowed upon those who will accept the gifts of freedom and grace, the blessings of community and service. He died for this gospel.

Francis was, in fact, the rich, young man, who gave it all over, in order to more fully embrace the gifts of creation and community with all living. He walked away from his worldly inheritance and his prospects as a scion of industry. He walked into a simpler life, discovering a prior fellowship and a goodly inheritance, among earth’s creatures and in kinship with the meek of the earth. He celebrated God’s universal gift in Christ by serving God’s creation and creatures.

Franciscans round the world still serve in this way. We enjoy Franciscan sisters and brothers at work within our diocese. They are models of the Franciscan rule of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Let’s consider how we can benefit from the wisdom of the vows they take, the better to serve God in Christ.

Let us learn from the vow of poverty to exercise freedom in our relationship to money and material goods. Let us simplify our lives, by letting go of unnecessary things. Let us enjoy the freedom of giving away whatever is more than enough. Let us experience the transformative power of generosity, as we invest in the common welfare, building social capital, to enrich our common life. Let us take to heart the Millennium Development Goals, working to eradicate abject need out of the bounty entrusted into our stewardship.

Let us learn from the vow of chastity how to honor the integrity of our selves and others, our souls and bodies. Let us grow practiced in how to treat people as gifts of God. Let us hold ourselves apart from whatever may degrade our high calling, as children of God and heirs of God’s promises. Let us establish the liberty and justice for all, that we claim as the dream of this nation under God. Let us strive to heal with compassion those whose human rights have been violated.

Let us learn from the vow of obedience how to be still, how to cease our striving and listen to the voice of God. Let us commit Sabbath space and time each day and week to hear the guidance and direction of the Spirit in our lives. Let us give ourselves evermore into this divine converse, becoming sanctified in body, mind, spirit for God’s work. Let us value our relationship with God in Christ as most precious among God’s many gifts to us.

A science writer, Janine Beynus, reminds us that we do not have to invent a sustainable ecosystem, because it’s already been done (Natural Capitalism, Paul Hawken et al, 73). Rather, we need to pay attention to the one we have been given, to listen, to learn from it, and to imitate its elegant economy. Let us celebrate the ecology of God, who in Christ has made us children and heirs, holding this earth community and its human community in trust for generations to come. By grace, may we prove worthy of that trust. AMEN

The Rev. Dr. Katherine M. Lehman+
Rector
St. Bede’s, Menlo Park

Lifegiving Rule            Exodus 20:1-4,7-9,12-20
16 Pentecost, proper 22            Psalm 19
October 2, 2011            Philippians 3:7-14
Matthew 21: 33-46

For example, on the news this weekend, they interviewed the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald. Since their offices were on the highest floors of the north tower of the World Trade Center, they lost about six hundred and fifty people that morning. About nine hundred children lost a parent in that company alone. Since that time, the company has directed a significant percentage of its profits to the families of those victims. The CEO says the support will continue until every one of those children completes college. Such a shining example of compassionate responsibility flies in the face of blatantly unethical behavior by others in the investment industry.

Let us consider what the scripture has to add to the intersection of our remembrance today. There is a memorable line in today’s collect that speaks to the heart of the matter. Without God we are unable to please God. Humans are created to cooperate consciously with their Creator. The fulfillment of what amounts to our hardwiring is contingent upon the ongoing nature of revelation. God’s continually self-discloses. Without the gift of revelation, we cannot grasp the sheer grace that is the utter perfection of God. And for our part, we must always await revelation, to receive our next assignment.

Without the gift of revelation, God will look more like us, at times resembling the worst, at others, the best of human nature. We cannot reach escape velocity from our own projections until and unless it is granted to us. It is a seed of inspiration in the imagination that ignites the human spirit with a vision of God larger than itself and far more wonderful.

Jesus demonstrates the best of human nature, in a way that has impressed many more than call themselves Christian. His presence as risen Christ is the revelatory glimpse, beyond his human nature, that is God’s specific gift to Christians. Jews and Muslims and others are given other transcendent glimpses.

In the Old Testament readings today, the focus is on the exodus, the originating narrative for the Hebrews. The way that the gods worked back then was fairly cutthroat. It was appalling for the Egyptian pantheon to be humiliated by the unknown God of a bunch of runaway slaves.  Who knew that such people had a God who could command the elements to wreak havoc among their charioteers? This is the Universal Studios version. Every Egyptian is engulfed. Soon, this new God on the block will go up against the golden calf in the Sinai wilderness and, eventually, against the gods of the Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Perezites, etc.

There are plenty of arguments to be had about conflicting depictions and interpretations of God, in the Hebrew scriptures, in the Greek scriptures, not to mention the Arabic scripture.  The tragedy of 9/11 catalyzed many such questions, framed by thoughtful Jews, Christians, and Muslims. History and tradition, religion and politics are all mixed up together. What does any of it have to do with the God who is famous for the deliverance and election of a group of people to serve the larger purpose, whether Jews, Christians, or Muslims, just for starters?

Flash forward from the Exodus story to Matthew’s Jesus, who is teaching Peter and the disciples about the nature of forgiveness. The parable that Jesus tells, in response to Peter’s question, depicts a king, who demonstrates generosity by forgiving the financial debt of a slave. In contrast the slave is exacting with someone who owes him money. When the king hears of the harsh treatment of the fellow slave, he comes down even harder still. The punch line is this: so also will God do to all who so behave. In other words, God resembles us at our worst, only with more firepower. For this reason, the telling of it seems more Matthean than reflective of Jesus’ paedogogy.            And it’s not particularly helpful as a teaching about the nature of God.

Elsewhere in scripture, we call upon the God of both justice and mercy. For instance, in the words Jesus taught, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. So also do we remind ourselves to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. These are simple reminders, incentives pointing to the reciprocal nature of justice. In this scenario, we can expect to get from God what we ourselves have given. This is a kind of practical wisdom that benefits human relations.

But beyond this sort of wisdom, scripture teaches us to hope for a God who is more merciful and compassionate than we are capable of being, a God who gives and forgives before we ask and whether we ask or not. In this scenario, the incentive has changed qualitatively. This kind of God captures our imaginations and moves us to love the good for its own sake. How much more excellent a glimpse is that?

Now let’s check the epistle. Paul is addressing poor deportment among the early Christians in Rome. They are criticizing each other, quarreling about dietary rules and holiday observances. He says that they are distracted from the gospel and incapable of demonstrating anything close to the example of Jesus. Paul urges them to return to the basics. They must begin again, by treating one another as befits children of God. They must recognize that all religious customs are useless, if they are not expressed in the right spirit and for the right reason. They are harmful when used to sow division and hostility.

What is notable about these lessons is that they each address the religious community focused upon itself. Israel is preoccupied with its constituting narrative. Matthew’s Peter is asking the question about another disciple, not about someone beyond their circle. Paul is addressing congregational dynamics. What’s wrong with this picture? It’s a fairly constricted view.

Christians framed their story of deliverance and election to reverberate off of Israel’s, and some would argue that Islam did as well. While I can’t speak to Islamic origins, both Israel and the church understand that their deliverance was and always is for a reason. It constitutes their election. They are assembled into a people to accomplish a particular mission, in the service of the God who calls them. And that election is for the sake of other nations and peoples.

Jews and Christians are off base when they aren’t doing that job. And what is that mission, that message, that service? Is it to trumpet that God loves us best? Is it to insist that we’re right and all other versions are flawed? Is it to claim that God doesn’t care for anyone who isn’t ready to sign up? None of that squares with the best of scripture in either testament, yet we relapse into it often. History is littered with the wreckage caused by such views.

The events of a decade ago are part of that wreckage. Its violence and destruction has forced us to ask searching questions about our place in the world and about our global neighbors, about conflicting views of God, about religious extremism and political terrorism. How are we to enact our religious and political convictions, in a world of such differences? How do we use our concept of God to differentiate ourselves and to legitimate our actions without disrespecting others?

One of the greatest gifts of the scriptural canon is its layered interpretation, leading us inescapably to the conclusion that God’s self-disclosure is ongoing, that our grasp of God’s revelation is emergent. For the scripture to meet the case today is a miracle of grace. It is the questions we put to these readings that represent our journey of repentance and illumination.

Yes, we can and do appreciate the sociology of religion, then and now. But are we to accept an ethnic god, a partisan god of tribe or clan, who contends with other such beings above the world stage? I think not. Can we instead acknowledge a God who creates our world, one among many, and our species, one among many, and even our form of religious expression, one among many, with equanimity? And can we do so without claiming some version of we knew God first, or better, and we will surely remain God’s favorite?

Is this the est glimpse of God that peeks through the veil of scripture ? Or is this the God who has led us more and more out of prejudice into this moment in history, who now calls us to rise to this vision for humanity and the earth? That is the question of our age, and how we engage it will determine what is possible for God now, in our hearts and in our time. Perhaps most pertinently, we cannot engage it without engaging faithful neighbors of all kinds.

The world has had a bellyful of religious and political exclusivists and extremists, convinced that to right the world they must wrong someone else. The vision of God that meets the case, however, is that the world will be righted when it is right for all, and not just the humans either. And just because we have come to this vision of God’s righteous purpose for creation through the grace of Jesus Christ does not necessarily mean that everyone does or must.

I remember the week of 9/11. At that time, NASDAQ was across the street, along with Russell Reynolds. Those folks were all at work when the markets opened on the east coast. Some were trading with people in the twin towers. That whole week, so many of them sought solace in our sanctuary. I doubt we’ve seen any of them since. What matters is that we were there for them when they needed us to be.

It is past time to repent of any vestigial imperialism on behalf of our particular flavor of religion. Judaism is given by God to the world, to serve it as a sign of God’s blessing. Christianity is given by God to the world, to serve it as a sign of God’s blessing. Undoubtedly, we can always do a better job of it. I really can’t speak to any of the other flavors, but there are those who can, inspired by compatible visions of God. They have experienced analogous forms of deliverance. They have responded to similar versions of election to serve. Huston Smith, the revered professor of religions, calls this the common core hypothesis or the perennial philosophy. It is as good a place as any to begin the conversation.

God’s intent and purpose is beyond our capacity to comprehend or contain. If we keep that straight, we’ll get into less trouble and be more open to whatever  service we may be called to next. Our job is always to learn and grow in the light of God. We have Jesus, the scriptures, and our tradition to inspire and inform us. The best God we can possibly imagine will undoubtedly fall short of the reality of glory. The broadest purpose we can possibly imagine will surely continue to unfold, as we are gatheterd up into God’s future.

To honor the revelation we’ve been given is to enact our best sense of God’s will, at the same time making common cause with all faithful people who wish to do the same. As grace renders us more capable of doing so, we will more and more incarnate God’s hope for the world.

Above all, we must remain open and alert to God’s ongoing, as yet uncodified and uncanonized, self-disclosure. Does anyone here assume that God went offline after the book of Revelation was written? Of course not. As the collect says so simply, our hearts must always remain open to the prompting of the Spirit, urging us into the next gestalt of deliverance and election.            AMEN

The Rev. Dr. Katherine M. Lehman+
Rector
St. Bede’s, Menlo Park

Glimpses of God            Exodus 14:19-31
13 Pentecost, Proper 19            Psalm 114
September 11, 2011            Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35

There is an old joke about four eminent contemporary theologians meeting with Jesus who asks them this very question:  “But who do you say that I am?”  They sit down, and respectfully take their turn, expressing their well-thought out opinions in tightly constructed rhetoric.  After they have finished, Jesus pauses for a moment, then writes in the sand, “Huh?”

Each of us, if asked this question, would be able to come up with at least one answer, whether in one of the standard creedal formula, a line of a hymn, or perhaps a more personal understanding.  As Christians, we do feel some pressure to be able to articulate the identity of our tradition’s originator. It is tricky though, isn’t it? We have the Jesus prophesized in the Hebrew Scriptures: the coming Messiah and the suffering servant. We have the Jesus of the three synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the gospels, sharing much material, and focusing on the retelling the story of his life as best they can.  We also have the Gospel of John, telling the story of Jesus, yes, but shaping it to enable the reader to enter into a more mystical awareness of the larger implications, and giving Jesus a much greater awareness of his own divinity, as in the “I am” statements.  There is the Jesus of the early church as seen in the letters of the New Testament, and in the still surviving prayers, liturgies, and art works.  And as Christianity becomes the dominant tradition in the fourth century, we see Jesus emerging as the triumphant leader, increasingly co-opted by those in power.  The centuries roll by, each adding yet another layer of so-called understanding to our picture of Jesus: sometimes helpful, sometimes confusing, sometimes wrong.

Let us go back to Matthew’s Gospel: Jesus first asks his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  The Son of Man, we ask? Who or what is that? It is a term that sounds even odder in Greek than it does in English.  It is a literal translation of a very common expression that exists in both Hebrew and Aramaic meaning very simply, “human being”.  It is, for instance, used by the prophet Ezekiel ninety-three times.  That being said, it is also clear that it is used differently in the Gospels: Jesus is not just a human being, there is something else being indicated.

Jesus then turns to those who know him best, and asks, “But who you say that I am?”

Identity is interesting, isn’t it?  How do we know who we are?   We can identify ourselves by the different roles that we play, by our origins, and by our subsequent social, economic and geographical situations.  We can identify ourselves by our gender, by our age and stage, by our personalities, by our health, and by our faith.  Some of these characteristics are documented, some are not.  Some can be stolen, some can not. Some things we can know by ourselves, many are mirrored directly or indirectly by others. Jesus asked his disciples to tell him who he was.  Was he testing them? Did he want to know?

For the Jew in first century Palestine, identity was largely a result of one’s family or place of origin, rather than individual characteristics. That information provided all the information necessary for society to be able to place an individual on the all-important honor-shame line of social standing.  For us today, our identification with certain groups is very important, but we also have a very high regard for our own uniqueness – a quality that was not so highly prized in antiquity.  In identifying himself as the Son of Man, Jesus is connecting himself with all humanity, all be it in some kind of special, New Testament way, rather than differentiating himself.

This issue of seeing our uniqueness, our individuality, within the context of the whole of humanity is a big one, isn’t it?  How can we separate ourselves out from the faceless masses without diminishing the uniqueness of anyone else? Isn’t it by considering our ‘specialness’, and having that specialness appreciated by others our way of identifying our individuality.  And how far are we prepared to take that specialness?  Are we prepared to use it to justify acts of dehumanization and violence, even in the name of the faith we hold?  Those crimes have been committed on our behalf in centuries past, and continue to be committed now, whether we choose to look or not.

The Jesus of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not spend his time talking about himself and his divinity.  That Jesus spent his time talking about the God he knew, and the kingdom of heaven with its revolutionary ideas of love and justice. That Jesus tries to teach us about a new way of living together, a new community, an ekklesia, which is the Greek word that we translate as “church”.  The ekklesia that really means those who are “called out”.   Called out because we have heard anew God’s message to us all through the teachings and example of Jesus.

Today we take such pride in our individuality, our gifts, our accomplishments, our autonomy, our rights – and rightly so.  The distortion, dislocation and tragedy of that pride is that it separates us from each other, from Jesus, from God, and, to turn the circle fully, ultimately ourselves:  we limit ourselves, each other, Jesus, and God by our restricted imaginations. This tragic limitation of all we know is, I believe, what makes possible the continued violence and desecration of our world.

Andrew Harvey, in his book, “The Son of Man”, has the Christ speaking.  He says, “Worship me as separate from you and outside you and the tragic and horrible farce of history will continue; the forests will be destroyed and all the birds and animals will die and the entire world will become an external image of the inner poverty and desolation of your vision of yourself.”  Harvey continues, “Know me as your deepest secret and innermost heart, know my power as your power, my love as your love, and you will come into the splendor of direct vision, which I, as Jesus on the earth, gave everything to try to give to you.”

But, how, we ask?  How can we trust enough to open our hearts and our understanding to such perplexing mystery?  To come into the splendor of such vision that Jesus can give us? Can we use our intellect to figure it out?  Can we learn it from wise teachers?  Jesus says no.  He praises Simon Peter in our Gospel passage for recognizing that he is the “Messiah, the Son of the living God”; and goes on to say that Simon Peter can have only learnt that from God.

We acknowledge the birth of Jesus to be the incarnation of God in our world. We also know Jesus to be the Word, with God from the beginning.  We know ourselves to be children of God. When will we start allowing our imaginations to guide us into living into that reality? When will we start recognizing the passion and power of God that lies within each one of us? A creative, all-loving, life-choosing energy that is waiting for us to be brave enough to engage with it.

This is the birth that humanity has been groaning for.  This will be the Second Coming.  And it is the job of all the called, the “ekklesia”, to build on this rock, not only for ourselves, the ones who have heard, but for the whole world.

The scriptures talk about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. As trackers of the promise, we often add Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, for they continue the lineage, with their husbands, who bore the public face of their families. Years ago, when Charles Gibbs was teasing me about feminism, he objected that I’d left out Leah, so I’ve included her in the litany since. But many other names are still missing in the line of the promise. And that’s what all the squabbling is about. Who has the final word? Who’s the favorite? Who’s left out? It’s human nature and the nature of families.

For instance, Abraham had a firstborn son, named Ishmael, by Hagar, Sarah’s servant, according to custom. When Sarah bore Isaac in old age, she sent Hagar and Ishmael away, also according to custom, as they were rivals within the tent. And thereby hangs a tale, doesn’t it? Muslims count themselves Abrahamic heirs through Hagar. There’s a throwaway line in the Genesis story, a caravan of Ishmaelite traders, carrying precious commodities for use in binders, ointments, and incense. These people are our cousins through Abraham. We do well to consider them our relations today, despite the estrangements of centuries and present conflict.

Another instance, in the next generation, involves Jacob and his older brother Esau, sons of Isaac by Rebecca.  She conspires with Jacob to wrest Esau’s blessing from his blind and dying father. Scholars suggest that the clever theft of Esau’s birthright represents a shift in custom from ultimogeniture to primogeniture, that is, whether the youngest or oldest son inherits. Who gets to inherit is the question, and in a nomadic culture of scarcity, inheritance is not split, but designated entire, so as to keep the assets pooled, to prosper the family’s future.

The background helps us, as we hear of the contention among Jacob’s twelve sons, by their various mothers. Family dynamics reverberate through generations.  Joseph is the youngest son, and his mother Rachel is the favored wife, Jacob’s first love and first cousin. Marriage between cousins kept the assets pooled within the larger tribe. Reuben is Jacob’s eldest son, by Leah, Rachel’s older sister. It was their father Laban who tricked Jacob into marrying Leah first, as was the custom. As she was veiled, Jacob assumed it was Rachel. Only after Leah bore Reuben did Laban grant Rachel to his nephew Jacob. If anyone had reason to resent Joseph, it was Reuben. The other ten sons were Jacob’s by Leah and Rachel’s servants, Bilhah and Zilpah, all according to custom.

We know the story because of Joseph’s technicolor dreamcoat, made famous on Broadway and here at Trinity School last year. It’s a story of surprising grace, despite betrayal. The brothers conspire to kill Joseph, when he comes out to their grazing camp. Reuben convinces them to sell him into service to Midianite traders instead, so to save his life. Not only are they stepbrothers, but they are also first cousins. And that’s how Joseph ends up in Egypt.

The psalm gives us the outcome of the story. Because Joseph has the gift of dream interpretation, he ends up serving in pharoah’s household, where he eventually becomes vizier, or chief steward. Severe famine in Israel sends Jacob’s sons begging to pharoah, and their audience is with their younger brother, unrecognizable after so many years. Eventually, Joseph makes himself known to them, at which point they are doubly fearful, for past perfidy and present present emergency. But Joseph forgives and absolves them, saying, what you meant for ill, God used for good. The psalmist’s point is that God’s purpose was not only to save Jacob’s line, but also to instruct the Egyptians in the power of the living God, the Holy One of Israel. Joseph functioned as what Christians would later call an apostle and evangelist, one sent with good news.

As I pondered this story, I kept flashing to the eldest son in the parable of the prodigal. Reuben had just as much reason to bear a grudge against his younger brother, but he didn’t. Instead, he hatched a plot to convince his stepbrothers of a more profitable alternative to fratricide, saved Joseph’s life, and saved the family itself, giving them grain from pharoah’s stores, to avert disaster from drought.

We never can tell how things will emerge and converge, can we?  One of the lessons of these stories is that doing what is right seems to compound the right, pooling the assets, accumulating goodness over time, as it were. And another of the lessons is that God can take our wrongdoings and redirect them to foster the grand plan, even though the wrongs entail incremental collateral damage along the way.

As I considered the patriarchal story for today, these questions arise from the New Testament. Am I my brother’s keeper? How about my cousins? Who are my mother and my brothers? And in relation to Jesus’ betrayal, what some meant for ill, God certainly used for good!

Let’s turn to the gospel scene. Jesus has been teaching. At day’s end, he withdraws to pray and sends the disciples ahead. They are fishermen, and they can fish the night, en route to the next stop, on the far shore, where he’ll join them. Praying is Jesus’ way of debriefing himself and preparing for the next round. His practice demonstrates his priority. His check-in time is his return to the well. He seeks to be still and know the will of God, of his abba.

Then he sets out to catch up with them, taking a short cut on the sea. There are many stories of yogis able to travel more swiftly than the rest of us, and I always thought of them as figures of speech. But then I saw one, bounding along the bike path by Chrissy Field, his gold and saffron robes flying in the wind and his feet unmistakably off the ground, apparently striding airborne. I recall seeing horses’ strides shot in slow motion, all four feet off the ground. It astonished and exhilarated me, because I intuited that his unusual capacity was due to his spiritual practice. That’s the way I picture Jesus in this story, so I can well imagine Peter wanting to join in the thrill of it. Obviously, Peter hadn’t logged the hours of prayer and needed more practice before he was safe for solo.

In the tumult and then in the ensuing calm, the disciples recognize Jesus’ sonship. Truly you are the Son of God, they say to him. Many leaders were called sons of God, not least the emperor. It was an honorific for the powerful. Also the pious were called sons of God. And Paul extends the metaphor by calling Christians children and heirs of God. It wasn’t until later that John the Evangelist coined the term only- begotten, to carry the notion of Jesus’ unique nature and work, later codified in the creed. For now, let’s use the term to refer to a spectrum of kinship.

There’s familial kinship. Reuben intervenes for Joseph, saying, lay not a hand on him, for he is our brother, our own flesh. Then there’s kinship of spirit. Jesus, whose family comes to see him, objects, insisting that his truest relations are those who share God’s service. My brothers and sisters are those who do the will of my Father. So we say that the children of God are all people, generically, each person created by God. And we add the distinction that God’s children are especially the godly, those who seek to serve God’s will.

And further, we claim Jesus to be the preeminent example of obedience to God’s will. We might call him God’s vizier. In large and prosperous families of the first century, the firstborn son and heir would act as chief steward, in charge of the father’s household. The lessons teach us that the father’s beloved is the one who cares for the whole family, the one who proves to be his brother’s keeper. Reuben does. And Jesus does. Later, so do Paul and Peter.

Paul is working with a predominantly Jewish congregation in Rome, helping them distinguish between the Mosaic covenant and the messianic covenant. Who better then Paul the Syrian rabbi and a Roman citizen to do so? This has to do with who are brothers and cousins. Paul says there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free. There is one distinct person, the most faithful servant, the one who does the will of God, as a beloved son of the beloved father. The man Jesus, who is called messiah/Christ is that one, from whom they take their example and through whom they gain access to the promise, becoming heirs through Christ, as younger siblings would through relationship to a firstborn.

Paul is urging the Romans to quit arguing about who’s the favorite, who’s the executor, who’s the heir, who’s in and who’s left out. The example of Jesus will answer such questions, and we will know his answers to be true only as we imitate his obedient service to the will of God. For the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call upon him. How can we grow into so hospitably inclusive a purpose as Paul has come to trust God to intend in Christ?

But first, many more need to hear the story of Jesus and his abba, to know that they’re invited and included inside the big tent, within the vast tribe, among the extended families of the peoples. Jesus’ self- offering is for the sake of the whole world, namely everyone and everything, all creation inheriting the promise. As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!

And so, what about the good news? It’s good news when we’re the ones being included, most of us being gentiles. But we’re not taking these lessons to heart until we also ask about their less comfortable implications, especially about who we might be excluding. What about the cousins? Did not the Jews teach us all we know about calling upon the God of their forebears? Did we not included by adoption and grace? Did not the Jews also teach the Ishmaelites to do the same?  Are they not our cousins in faith?

What if we learned to respect that, while Jews come to the living God through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, so do we through Christ Jesus, and so do Muslims through the prophet Mohammed? What if we could coexist, witnessing to our shared service, to the God of all who call upon him and seek to do his will? Would not that be the best news yet for this vexed and troubled world? Could we not  at least start there, to repair the damage? Would our ancestors in faith applaud such efforts, with 20/20 hindsight? Most crucially, would God want us to do so? Is it God’s will that the faithful of every race, creed, tribe, and nation make peace, for the sake of the Holy One who created us all, and in whose Spirit we all live, move, and have our being?

We are being called to such questions by these lessons and by the grievous conflict of our day and time. Is not God the God of all? Are we not related as children of God? Are we not obligated to forge peace in our father’s household, in order to be convincing stewards and witnesses of God’s shalom abroad? We are told that the word is near us, on our lips and in our hearts. It convicts us, claims us, and impels our proclamation to accord with God’s most ample purpose. We are being urged to be both faithful and hospitable to those of other faiths, trusting in grace available to make common cause for the sake of the common good. May the people say AMEN.

The Rev. Dr. Katherine M. Lehman+
Rector

Favorite Son                              Genesis 37: 1-4,12-28
8 Pentecost, Proper 14            Psalm 105: 1-6,16-22
August 7, 2011                           Romans 10: 5-15
St. Bede’s, Menlo Park            Matthew 14: 22-33

There is an approach to the interpretation of this story that arises from the field of cultural anthropology. It is seen as a condensed parable, one that represents a gradual shift in spiritual consciousness and religious practice, away from child sacrifice and into a sacrificial system involving food, including animals. The story documents an evolution towards more enlightened ritual offerings to a less bloodthirsty god. Animal sacrifice offends us today, but in the context of subsistence agriculture, a tithe was the first fruits of all food, crops, flocks, herds. The priests of the cult ate most of it, those who were given time out from field labor to foster right relationship with a god who provided favorable weather, growth, and harvest. This reading makes contextual sense, but we needn’t stop there.

Let’s approach the parable at face value, as a whopping good suspense story. The author has constructed an appalling situation, one from which the protagonist also recoils. Both the author and Abraham know the full weight of this ordeal, a severe test. The suspense is generated because we identify with Isaac, who trusts his father and doesn’t know what’s about to happen. This is where we need to understand both Isaac and the ram as plot devices, meant to focus the meaning upon Abraham’s faith in a faithful God. It may also help to remember the absolute authority of nomadic patriarchs in herding cultures. Abraham is answerable and obligated to his God. Isaac and everyone else in his extended family are answerable and obligated to Abraham, the headman. This is a world in which all personal concerns are subordinate to tribal survival.

Here’s the most salient meaning of the story, Both the author and the protagonist hold out hope for a better solution, a better provision, a better God than initially appears to be the case. In other words, they already know better, and that knowledge can only have been revealed to them. So as Paul says, Abraham trusted God, who reckoned it to him as righteousness. Since we aren’t told one way or another, I prefer to think that Isaac is left ignorant of what might have been, Instead, he gets a formative lesson, observing his father’s faith and God’s faithful provision in time of need. That reading would be most gracious.

And we can glean more from this story. We remember that Isaac is the only son of Abraham and Sarah’s old age, the laughter of their lives. How can it be conceivable that the God who so blessed them would so cruelly revisit their family? Maybe the nature of the test was to see if Abraham would fall for such nonsense. Imagine Abraham, struggling to go through with this command and finally unable to contain his repugnance. God forbid! I know my son as your best gift to us. I know you’ll find another way. For me to do as instructed would be to dishonor all I know of you. I must’ve heard you wrong, and if I didn’t, then you’re not the God I know and love, so get thee behind me! It’s both plausible and provocative to consider the dynamic from this angle. Abraham learned something about his God.

There’s another reason to milk this story, of course, and it has to do with Jesus, the beloved and only-begotten Son of the Father. We are heirs to centuries of expiatory theology, struggling to make sense of how God could allow the crucifixion, much less condone it or cause it to happen. There’s been a lot of fuzzy thinking on the subject, but that’s how we sort things out over time. Remember the child sacrifice piece. We can all recite this phrase. God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in him not perish, but have everlasting life. But what does it mean to give his son? Does it mean give him to humankind? That makes sense. Does it mean, then, that God takes a big risk in trusting us? Otherwise, how could God’s reasoning be any better than the argument of Caiphas for taking one life to save many? Whether we yet have adequate answers matters less than that we continue to refine the questions. Meantime, we trust that the Spirit will lead us into all truth, eventually, that is.

It’s not a neat chronological progression either. The Hebrew scriptures are full of glimpses of that better God, a God better than most can ask or imagine at the time or since. Similarly, the Greek scriptures contain vestigial evidence of lesser views of gods who fall short of the mark. The bull’s eye is Jesus’ intimate relationship with his abba God. Thus we must never cease to tease out the golden thread from the tangled fabric of theological speculation. Jesus did so masterfully. As he taught, he freely interpreted the law and the prophets, obedient to his best vision of abba God, the best he could conceive and convey in human terms.

Remember in the prophets and the psalms, when God thunders, with impatience and frustration, at those who grovel before him. Do you think I desire to drink the blood of goats, to devour the flesh of my creatures?! Can we not continue in this same vein? Do you honestly think I require the sacrifice of my beloved Son? God forbid! It is he who freely chooses to love you more than mortal life. All I can do is raise him up after he has done what he chooses to be most right. I can exalt his compassion and self-oblation. And I do.

If we disentangle the threads in this manner, then we can appreciate how, as Paul teaches, the wages of sin lead to death, whereas the wages of righteousness lead to participation in the life of God. It was sinners who condemned and crucified Jesus. God uplifted his upright Son, as an example, to turn the hearts and minds of many, to lead them out of the thrall of sin and death into the arms of mercy and grace. Hear the echoes of the tradition, teaching us to present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. It’s not bloodletting that God wants, but rather lifeblood, lived in God’s service, following the example of messiah/Christ.

Paul is talking about these distinctions with the Christians in Rome. Rome, also, was built upon a patriarchal hierarchy of authority and obligation. Slavery was as essential an institution as soldiery, but class mobility was possible and did happen. Freedom could be bought, and loyal allegiance to overlords made such escape from hardship more likely. Paul is playing with the categories of slave and free, of law and grace, of servanthood and sonship. Everyone in his audience understands from experience the interplay of power and authority, of obligation and obedience, as the social structure of their lives.

We must pause to appreciate that they and we can only imagine so far beyond our own experience. We see through a glass darkly. What was true for our ancestors in faith is true for us as well. The rest we must be told or shown, as revelation, from those who know better or straight from the best possible source, the epiphany of messiah/Christ illuminated by the Spirit.  Paul says that, before God’s gift of Jesus into humankind, sin dominated life and our relationship to God.

Sin was like a rude, harsh, cruel overlord, who treats his miserable slaves, family, and clients no better than he can imagine, given his selfish and fearful greed. There was plenty of such power wielded in the imperial capital. Instead, suggests Paul, get a new master! Present yourselves whole and acceptable, a living sacrifice, to the best imaginable overlord. Sign up for service to that Lord whose service is perfect freedom. It is a joy to serve such a master, in such a household, and to represent the master’s interest’s in the public arena and in public affairs.

Serving a trustworthy overlord is transformative. What was once drudgery becomes a self- offering. What was once enslavement becomes willing service. Paul calls it obedience from the heart. It did happen at times that overlords freed and adopted their slaves as heirs, when they lacked biological heirs or when theirs had met with early death. Thus Paul uses the familiar image for gentile inclusion in Christ, heirs by adoption and grace.

As faithful retainers grow in their relationship to a trustworthy master, they begin to be treated and to feel more like family than like servants. Even more astonishing and amazing, in John’s gospel, Jesus calls the disciples friends. So we become friends of God in Christ. And Paul says that we become partners in the Body of Christ, serving the new creation that is the enterprise of abba God and messiah/Christ. We become part of and so we inherit the family business.

What these lessons are teaching us is to take seriously the optimal conditions required for spiritual growth and for the spiritual evolution of humanity, that is, for the advancement of redemption. When God is conceived as the best we can ask or imagine, then it’s as though we were plants given the best possible environment in which to thrive. Instead of horticulture, think theoculture.

It matters whether gods are ruthless or whether we encounter a God of a different kind, one who makes himself known to us through compassion. It matters whether God sent his beloved Son, or anyone, including beloved daughters, to the pyre or to the cross, or whether instead it is human error that does. It matters whether God and his beloved Son forgive the fear and violence that cost Jesus his life. It is precisely their forgiveness of his death that has served as a ransom for all. It is Jesus’ living sacrifice that inspires us to live free from fear, to rely on God who is trustworthy to save.  This is the gospel of grace that Abraham waited upon and that Jesus claimed for all. You gotta love a God like that.

So Paul teaches the Romans to submit themselves to the gospel of grace. Repentance and regret are simply signs that we now know better and can gauge how far off we once were. The end of this heart’s aim is the fullness of life we recognize in Jesus. It’s also engagingly obvious in the lives of the saints and in the communion of saints, among the beloved community. There is a joyful freedom in the obligation of the heart. There is a shared expression of hospitable generosity and inclusive compassion. There is abundance of faith, hope, love. There is the strength to stand upright and to stand for whatever is right.

We learn from the Abraham and Isaac story, as we do from the Jesus story, that the test must be real. And every bit as real as the test is the blessed assurance of the Father’s love and the Son’s friendship and the Spirit’s strengthening, all meant to transform sin into grace, death into life. We can count on God’s peculiar and particular provision to save the day and the world. AMEN

The Rev. Dr. Katherine M. Lehman+
Rector

Trust God to Provide            Genesis 22:1-14
2 Pentecost, proper 8            Psalm 13
June 26, 2011            Romans6:12-23
St. Bede’s, Menlo Park            Matthew 10:40-42