The Light of the World

“The Light of the World”

Isaiah 9:2-7, Luke 2: 1-20

Rev. Dr. Teri McDowell Ott

Monmouth College Christmas Convocation 2011

 

On December 3, 1933, the year Hitler rose to power in Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached a sermon using the image of a mine that had caved in, trapping those working inside, in order to describe the season of Advent.  He said Advent was like that dark cave in which the miners were trapped.  There is silence all around them and the miners have little hope of being saved.  But then suddenly they hear the sound of tapping, and then the breaking of rock off in the distance.  And even more unexpectedly a voice cries out to them in all that darkness that says, “Don’t give up!  Help is on the way!”  As the air grows thin around them they wonder if their Savior really will come.  They wonder if they will ever know anything else but the darkness that presses down on them like a thick, wet blanket.  And all they can do is listen intently to the tap, tap, tapping of their Savior trying to break through to them.  Such is the season of Advent.

But on Christmas, the light breaks through.  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.”

On Christmas, we celebrate the light that has broken through our darkness; the light that penetrates the dark caves of our souls; the light that brings us hope and peace because with this light comes the reassurance that our Savior has arrived; our Savior who is the Light of the World.

“Do not be afraid,” the angels announce, “for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.”  It is important to note that The Light has not just come for a few.  The Light has not just come for those of generations past.  The Light has come for all the people. The Light of the World knows no boundaries, it knows no exclusivity, it knows no prejudice.  The Light of the World is for all the people.  And to “all the people” the Light promises big things.  The light promises to break through our darkness, it promises to transform our lives and our world, it promises to bring us peace.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace, goodwill among people.”

Too often, we Christians devalue the scripture’s understanding of “peace” by spiritualizing it or by saying that it only has to do with a feeling of inner comfort or inner calm. We reduce the biblical understanding of peace to something like a stress ball or a worry doll that we keep on our desks; when the stress of final exams overwhelms us we can aggressively mush and mash our ball of peace to make ourselves feel a little better and get on with our work.  But this understanding of peace doesn’t delve deep enough, it doesn’t come close to what the Light of the World truly promises.  This understanding of peace doesn’t come close because it doesn’t touch the darkest darkness of all the people and of our lives together here on God’s good earth.

Peace, true biblical peace, is the end of violence and of all that leads us to it.  Peace is harmony and goodwill and shalom.  Peace is love and respect.  Peace is a commitment to the well-being of the other.  Peace is the moment when, as the prophet Isaiah puts it, “all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.”  This, this peace, is what the Light of the World promises us.  The Light promises us big things.

Some say too big.  Reinhold Niebuhr, a public theologian, rose to national prominence during World War II as he debated the merits of the Christian understanding of peace in the midst of a violent and horrific world war.  Niebuhr concluded that the law of love and the biblical understanding of peace was “finally and ultimately normative” but that it was an “impossible possibility” in a sinful world.[1]  Many agreed with Niebuhr.  His words resonated with people whose faith led them to hope for the possibility of peace, but who believed, realistically speaking, that peace was simply impossible.  Today, as our troops still fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, as Israel and Palestine continue in conflict, as warring tribes in Africa still wreak havoc on the land and on the people, as evidence of our violence and our evil against each other still make the daily news, we too might agree that peace is the impossible possibility.

Yet….maybe we can still find some reason to hope.  A few years ago I heard an author interviewed on a book he wrote about the story of the World War I Christmas Truce.  No one has ever been certain as to how the Christmas Truce of World War I began on December 24^th of 1914.  The day had begun just as every other miserable day.  The British, French, Belgian, and German troops were only 60 yards from each other in their trenches.  They could see each other and hear each other.

The conditions these soldiers were living in were miserable.  Cold rain had flooded the trenches mixed with the bodies of their fallen comrades.  Rats, lice, filth and mud had made the floor of the trench so swampy that it forced the soldiers to move constantly and sleep standing up, leaning against dripping walls.  It was this stomach–churning atmosphere that both sides shared that Christmas.  It was this atmosphere of war and suffering that made the soldiers seek a time of respite, a time of peace on Christmas Eve.

The Germans had been sent Christmas trees from their supporters at home.  They bravely lined their trench with these trees and lit the candles clamped to their branches.  The British witnessing this Christmas declaration responded by sending gifts of pudding, chocolates, and cigarettes to the Germans.  Christmas carols began to float through the air that had suddenly become cold and clear and the soldiers learned that they knew the same songs.  We’re not sure who crawled out of their trench first, but eventually both sides met in the middle, in the space between them called “No Man’s Land.” Here they encountered so many bodies that they decided they could not be friends until their fallen comrades had been buried.  So the cease-fire continued as the bodies were buried and the dead were mourned.  Then the enemies returned to “No Man’s Land” and decided to play soccer.

For two whole days they played soccer in that place of death between their trenches.  For two whole days they fraternized with the enemy, at the risk of being court-marshaled.  And in this place and time, the soldiers realized that on each side of the rifle, they were the same.  As the power of peace grew among them, they exchanged addresses and letters and expressed deep admiration for one another.  So when angry officers finally ordered the men to start shooting again, many could not do so.  The enemy now had a face, and a family, and a story.  They could no longer demonize the enemy, so they aimed their guns harmlessly high overhead, shooting into the air.  Eventually the troops on the front lines had to be replaced.  They had to be replaced by men who hadn’t witnessed the miracle of that cold Christmas Eve in 1914.[2]

This is one of the most amazing Christmas stories I have ever heard.  It’s exactly the kind of story I want to hear at Christmas because it gives me hope and I want to feel hope, especially at Christmas.  But as I considered this story and as I considered what I wanted to preach today I wondered if I was just being nostalgic in this hope?  Was I ignoring reality?  Was I reducing the promise of peace to a once-a-year sentiment just to make me feel good at Christmas?  Because it was true that after the miraculous Christmas truce of December 24^th, 1914, World War I raged on for four more years and three more Christmas’.

So, is there reason to hope?  Is peace possible for you, and for me, and for all the people?

Well, I think I was finally convinced that my hope was more than mere sentiment or nostalgia by my husband, Dan, in a paper he recently wrote about peace.  In Dan’s paper he listed a number of successful nonviolent movements in the last half of the 20^th century and the beginning of the 21^st through which peace was not only possible, but made a reality.

Dan’s list included:

• Mkhuseli Jack’s nonviolent movement in South Africa that finalized the end of Apartheid.
• Peaceful protests and strikes led by Chilean workers that were successful in ousting the ruthless tyrant, Agusto Pinochet.
• The work of Otpor!, a nonviolent youth movement in Serbia that was credited in the successful overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic.
• The Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement, which brought an end to civil war.
• The Orange Revolution in Ukraine, a nonviolent movement that challenged government corruption and electoral fraud.
• And, of course, the recent Arab Spring, within which nonviolent groups like the April 6 Youth Movement had a leading role in the dramatic and transformative events that took place in Tahrir Square, Cairo.[3]

Certainly, Dan’s list is not exhaustive.  And of course, when we speak of successful nonviolent movements for peace we also must recall the classic examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.  But might it be, in light of this evidence, that peace is possible, genuine peace, if we believe it to be so and if we live and work toward that end?

Bonhoeffer’s image of the miners trapped in the cave is a good one.  The darkness of our world often feels like that cave, like a hopeless dark trap from which we believe there is no escape.  But listen…listen….can you hear it?  Can you hear the tap, tap, tapping of the Light trying to break through?  It’s getting louder now; loud enough now for us to know a little hope; loud enough now for us to hear the voice of our salvation; loud enough now for us to believe.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.  For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 

Now to the God who promises this Peace, be all honor and glory, thanksgiving and power, now and forevermore.  Amen.

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[1] Reinhold Niebuhr, “Why the Christian Church is Not Pacifist” as reprinted in Reinhold Niebuhr: Theologian of Public Life, ed. Larry Rasmussen, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), p. 241 as quoted by Daniel J. Ott in “Toward a Realistic, Public, Christian Pacifism,” unpublished.

[2] Stanley Weintraub, “Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce,” (The Free Press, New York, NY, 2001).

[3] Daniel J. Ott, “Toward a Realistic, Public, Christian Pacifism,” unpublished.

Hell’s Vestibule, Investments and a Hard God

Hell’s Vestibule, Investments and a Hard God

Matthew 25:14-30

Daniel J. Ott

 

The parable of the entrusted money is a really tricky one.  I’m not real sure who the good guys and the bad guys are here.

Well of course we know who the baddest bad guy is.  That must be the one who is called a “wicked and lazy servant.”  But I have some sympathy for the poor guy.  First of all, he’s the underdog, and I always want to root for the underdog.  When the boss doles out the cash at the beginning of the story, he gets the least. One gets five bags of gold, another two bags, and to the last one bag of gold.  Now it sounds like all of these are pretty goodly sums, but still, the last servant kind of gets the shaft.  And what’s more, the parable tells us that the boss gives to each of the servants in proportion to his abilities.  So, the boss from the start doesn’t expect much from the poor guy.  Why is he judged so harshly, then?

Well, we might think it’s because he takes the money out and buries it.  Who just buries money, right?  I’ll tell you, I’ve been thinking about burying a few bucs the way the stock market’s been lately, but never mind that.  It actually was pretty acceptable practice at the time to burry money.  Banking wasn’t as sophisticated as it is today and it sure wasn’t insured by the government.  Any kind of investment, even with ‘the bankers’ wasn’t a sure thing.  And evidently this boss is a hard case.  The last servant is scared.  He’s probably already been flayed by this guy a time or two.  So the poor schlep goes the easy rout and finds a good hiding spot in the back yard.  Who can blame him?  Not me.

But the guy telling the story and the boss in the story sure let the last servant have it:  “You wicked and lazy servant!  Take the money from this servant and give to the first servant. I don’t care if does already have ten bags of gold.  And throw this useless servant into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  Ouch!

This reminded me of a couple other passages where the not-so-bad go in for pretty harsh treatment.  You might remember John the Revelator’s message to the church in Laodicea.  “I know your works; you are neither the cold nor the hot.  I wish that you were either cold or hot.  So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”  Ancient writers didn’t like people who play it safe, evidently.

And neither did medieval writers.  Dante reserves a special place in hell for the lukewarm or those who lived life with no blame or praise as he calls them.  Actually, they’re not quite in hell, but in the vestibule.  He writes, “these wretches have no hope of truly dying, and this blind life they lead is so abject it makes them envy every other fate.”  So, they might rather be in hell, but instead they’re in the vestibule caught in a rushing, whirling wind chasing a banner that never takes a stand.  Get it? – never takes a stand?  Dante describes them as “an interminable train of souls, so many that I wondered how death could have undone so great a number… These wretches, who had never truly lived, went naked, and were stung and stung again by the hornets and the wasps that circled them and made their faces run with blood in streaks; their blood, mixed with their tears, dripped to their feet, and disgusting maggots collected in the pus.”[1]  Perhaps I should have read this last week for Halloween.

But the message is clear, if overstated in all three cases, to take the easy road, to be lukewarm, to never take a stand, really is to not live at all.  The one who buries his treasure will never gain anything.  The one who is neither hot nor cold, really has no temperature at all.  Only the one who does nothing with her life can avoid all blame or praise. If I were going to play it safe with this parable, I would tell you simply not to play it safe and end the sermon here.  But there is some sort of irony here that begs me to press on.

Let’s consider the first two servants for a minute.  We’re clearly given a clue that these are the good guys in the story.  The boss praises them, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joy of your master.”  We’ve all heard these beautiful words at the funeral of a faithful loved one.  What fitting words they are on such an occasion.

But what did these servants in the story do to earn such praise.  Well, they took the money they were given and put it to work.  And they did so quite eagerly.  The first servant “began immediately to invest the money and soon doubled it.”  The second servant “went right to work” and doubled his too.  Surely this is good service.  This is certainly the kind of behavior we want in a financial advisor or a stockbroker.  Put that money to work!

But does it translate easily or well to the life of faith?  Should we be looking for a return on our spiritual investments?  Should we expect the boss to reward us for faithful service?

I have known people who think about service and giving in this way.  I’ve had more than one person tell me that they truly believe that when they give generously to the church, God will bless them.  And they mean financially!   The more money they put in the plate, the more money God will put in their pocket.  Unfortunately, I’ve never had the heart or the guts to tell them that I think such a philosophy is at best wrong-headed, and at worst delusional.  This is not why we give to the church.  We give to give, not to receive.  We give because we have already received so much, not because we have expectations of reciprocity.

And even if we translate the giving into giving of our time and talents – after all the word talent finds its origin in this story – even then the theology is all wrong.  Surely we don’t mean to say that those of us who preach, or make soup, or serve on the session, or come to church every Sunday, have any corner on God’s blessings.  Surely nothing that we do earns us God’s blessing, right?  God’s commendation, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” is not reserved for the ones who gave the most money, or had the most talent, or spent the most time at church.

I’m not at all sure that God and the boss in our story tally up the sheet in the same way at all.  In fact, I think we better hurry up and say that the boss of this story and God cannot be the same person.  The third servant describes the boss as a hard man, who “harvests crops he did not plant and gathers crops he did not cultivate.”  That sound like not just a hard man, but a thief to me.  And the boss makes no effort to deny it.  In his rebuke of the “wicked” slave the boss exclaims, “You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter?  Then you ought to have invested the money I gave you and brought me the interest.”  And then he says the most damnable thing, “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”  God cannot be the hard man that says that.  God is not a hard God.

God does not reap where he does not sow.  God sows and sows and sows some more.  God does not harvest a crop for which he doesn’t care.  God cares and cares and cares some more.

God does not say, “To those who have much more will be given.”  Instead God says, “The last will be first and the first will be last.”  God says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  And blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”  God is not a hard God, like some suppose, blessing the noble and damning the wretch. God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. God is ready to pardon our iniquities and forgive our transgressions.

In the end, surely it will be the lowly servant, the humble and mean slave to whom God says, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Enter into the joy of your master.”

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[1] Mark Musa, trans.  Dante, The Divine Comedy:  Volume 1:  Inferno, (Penguin Books), p. 90-91.

On Idolatry

            I think it was Karl Barth who said that we should do our daily reading with the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other.  Sometimes it’s almost spooky the ways in which they overlap.  This week my Bible was open to Exodus and the story of ‘the golden calf,’ while news headlines where dominated by images of the bronze bull that stands near Wall Street.

The pictures of Wall Street’s bull this week of course had protestors lying beneath it or, later, barricades around it with police officers standing guard.  The Occupy Wall Street movement actually began a few weeks ago, but it has somewhat unexpectedly picked up steam this week and people are taking notice.  And as people take notice, one of the things that people are wondering is what exactly these protestors want.  Protests that we’ve seen before have had identified spokespersons, clear goals, and practicable demands.  This movement seems to lack all of the above.  Instead, this protest seems to be more of an expression of dissatisfaction and uncertainty.  It may be that the protestors are so uncertain that they can’t even quite put their finger on what would make the situation better.  So, they’ve gathered around the bull in search of some direction, or a leader, or a solution.

Interestingly, the bull itself was erected amidst uncertainty.  A New York artist created the bull in response to the 1987 stock market crash.  He said it was a testament to “the strength, power and hope of the American people.”[1]

I guess there’s something deep within humans that says when in doubt make a bovine statue, because the Hebrews, too, decided to construct a bull and hold a rally.  And they, too, did it amidst uncertainty.  Moses had led them out of Egypt and into the wilderness and they had been in the wilderness for some time.  Now Moses had gone up to the mountain where he was receiving the covenant and the law.  He’d been gone for a while and the people are growing restless.  “Is he coming back?  Where did he go exactly?  And why?  Are we left here without a leader?  Are we just going to camp here and wait for him forever? And where is God?  I thought God was going to take us to a great and fertile land, but here we sit in the middle of nowhere.  When is God going to do something?”

The people are uncertain and it is this uncertainty that makes them begin to act strangely.  They gather around Aaron and they make an interesting request.  “Make gods for us, who shall go before us.”  Now surely even ancient people understood that you just can’t decide at the drop of a hat to “make” a god.  You can fashion an idol or an icon, but that icon refers to something beyond itself, something transcendent that already exists.  You can’t just “make” a god.

But the people are desperate.  They’re scared.  They’re uncertain.  They want something tangible.  They want some assurances. And who can blame them?  It indeed can be frustrating to worship an intangible God.  It can be scary to try to follow God who is invisible.  We too find ourselves asking, “Where did God go?” When we lose a job, we ask, “Where did God go?”  When the economy is tanking we ask, “When is God going to do something?” When tragedy strikes, we ask, “Where is God?”  When we’re in the wilderness and not sure what the future holds, it’s almost natural to ask “Where did God go?”

Aaron must empathize with the people’s desperation and frustration, because without objection he quickly commences fashioning the calf out of gold.  And notice what happens next.  When the calf is done, the people say, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”  Now that’s a classic statement of idolatry.  It’s almost a definition.  The people have put something that is not God in God’s place.  But keep reading.  Aaron hears this and builds an altar and calls for a festival.  But notice what he says, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the LORD.”  The Hebrew reads, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to Yahweh.”

When we think of idolatry we usually think of someone turning their back on God and devoting themselves to something else.  But here the gods that Aaron fashioned have not replaced Yahweh.  Instead they are set beside Yahweh.  And this may be how most folks engage in idolatry.  I suspect that this is the way that we church folks usually engage in idolatry.  We don’t completely turn our backs on God, but we may from time to time set something along side of God.  We hedge our bets.  In God we trust, but maybe we could also hold on to some things that are a little more tangible.

I remember very vividly the Sunday after 9-11-2001.  We had held a short, impromptu prayer service on the evening of the disaster.  But by Sunday things had settled in our minds a little more and we were all struggling to come to terms with these events.  I was very nervous about my sermon, because I knew people would want some help in making sense of it all.

I remember entering the church at the back of the sanctuary and seeing immediately that the American flag had been brought forward and placed right next to the pulpit.  My whole being cringed.  In my mind, whoever moved that flag was hedging their bets.  They had placed the flag, a symbol of national pride, next to God.

Now don’t hear me wrong.  I’m not saying that we can’t be religious and patriotic, too.  I’m not saying that the flag itself is an idol.  I’m not saying that all nationalism or national pride is idolatrous.  What I am saying is that we need to remember that we are a nation under God.  What I am saying is that it is “In God we Trust,” not in the United States of America.  What I am saying is that we may take great pride in who we are as a nation, but as soon as we set nation alongside God, we are dangerously flirting with idolatry. When we set economic boon alongside God, we are dangerously flirting with idolatry.  When we set our own success or happiness alongside God, we are flirting dangerously with idolatry.  When we set anything alongside God, we are flirting with idolatry.

Paul Tillich, the great theologian of the 20^th Century, wrote “Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned…”[2]  Faith is centering your life on something.  Faith is placing something at the center of your life around which everything else orbits.  And Tillich warned that the danger is that we may find ourselves ultimately concerned with something that is not ultimate.  This is idolatry.  Idolatry is putting your faith in finite things.  It’s centering your life on something that is not ultimate, not eternal, not lasting, not from above, not Godly.  Idolatry is placing something limited and passing at the center of your life.

And when we do this, we may very well feel God’s wrath.  In our story, God’s wrath is characterized in narrative form.  God gets angry and mocks the people.  He says, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.”  God tells Moses, “Step aside!  Stay out of my way, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them.”

This is a powerful scene.  But we can see the results of God’s wrath even without imagining such a heavenly conversation.  You see… nations rise and fall.  Economies boom and bust.  Jobs begin and end.  Love is fleeting.  Happiness passes.  And this is why we cannot center our lives on such things.  We see the tyrant fall with the state.  We’ve seen one too many stock-broker or vice-president commit suicide when the stuff hits the fan.  We see people lose their sense of self-worth when they lose their job.  We see that divorce not only breaks homes, but often breaks people.  We see this because what we’ve done in all of these cases is centered our lives on something finite.  We’ve put our faith in something that is passing.  And when that thing is no more, then we are crushed.  We’re lost.  We’re consumed by God and feel the heat of God’s wrath.

But, thanks be to God, this is not the end of the story.  Moses intercedes.  He starts begging for God’s mercy on behalf of the people.  He asks God to remember.  First, he asks God to remember all the good that God has done for the people already, how God delivered them from Egypt and brought them through the wilderness this far.  Then, he suggests that God consider what others would think, if God were to bring them this far only to destroy them.  Finally, Moses asks God to remember the promises that God made to Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob and all the people of Israel.  And God does remember.  God remembers the works, and the people and the promises and God repents.  God’s mind has changed.  God chooses to remember rather than destroy.

And the psalmist is quick to point out the irony.  The people forgot, but God remembered.  When enslaved in Egypt, the people forgot God’s love and power.  But God remembered and delivered them from the hands of their oppressors.  The people forgot again in the wilderness and grumbled against Moses and God.  But God remembered and gave them manna to eat and water to drink from the rock.  The people forgot and exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass.  But God remembered, had mercy on them and brought them into the Promised Land.

We forget, but God remembers.  When things go badly and we feel uncertain, we forget and so we start to hedge our bets. We put our faith in finite things and center our lives on that which is passing.  But God remembers. God remembers, breaks down our idols and breaks loose our chains.  God has mercy upon us and forgives us for forgetting.  When we forget, God remembers.  Thanks be to God.

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[1]http://www.wallstreetgifts.com/bowling_green_bull_wall_street_stock_market_new_york_city_NYC_bulls_gift_gifts_statue/item-redirect-bowling-green-bull-a-wall-street-bull-story.html

[2] Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, (New York:  HarperOne, 1957), p. 1.

“No Bargain At All”

Matthew 20:1-16

Daniel J. Ott

We’re all looking for a bargain, aren’t we?  My father-in-law and I are big internet shoppers.  We often compare notes when we get together.  “I found a universal remote for twenty bucks that lists for $89.99.”  “I got some new speakers for my computer – 70% off.”  We’re all looking to pay less and get more, right?

Maybe we’re even looking for a bargain when it comes to work.  Sure we say that all we want is a fair wage for a fair day’s work, but working a little less and earning a little more wouldn’t hurt.  You have to haggle a little when you take a new job.  You have to ask for a raise now and again.

The first group of workers in our story knows this.  They may be a little down on their luck.  They’re trying to scrape things together as day laborers, but they’re far from stupid.  The landowner comes around and they know that they should agree on a price ahead of time.  They’re about to work a twelve hour day and they want to make sure that they get what’s coming to them… or maybe a little more.  So they bargain a little, but I guess the landowner was better at the bargaining game, because they settle for the usual day’s wage.  Can’t blame them for trying, though.  Give less – get more.  That’s our motto.

I have the impression that some people live by that motto even when it comes to religion.  Their religion starts with one simple prayer that earns them a spot in heaven.  They like churches where not much is required:  Just go hear the band, a sermon that’s easy to understand, and slip out the back.  They like to hear the preacher talk about forgiveness and grace, not so much holiness or service.  Religion for them is a private matter, a personal affair.  Just a little talk with Jesus now and again and everything will be alright.  Give less – get more.  Who can blame them?  We’re all looking for a bargain.

But if we can’t get a bargain, then I guess we’ll settle for what’s fair.  That’s what the next sets of workers do.  The landowner keeps going back to the marketplace every three hours to get more workers.  I guess the harvest was plentiful that year.  And unemployment must have been up, too, for all those workers to be standing around.  Perhaps that’s why they don’t bargain.  The landowner simply tells them that he will pay them what’s fair and they go quietly to get to work.

That’s a good Midwest mindset, right?  We like a person who just keeps her head down and does her job.  We all just kind of expect that if you work hard, things will work out in the end.  Just do your job and take care of your business and everything will be alright.

And this mindset can bleed over into religion too.  He says, “I’ll be alright.  I never drank much or gambled.  I’ve always put food on the table for my family.  I went to church when I could.  I’m sure the Lord will be alright with me.”  She says, “I’ve always tried to be nice to people.  I’ve helped out when I could.  I took care of Mom when she got old.  Surely, God will see that I’m basically a good person.”  It’s just what’s fair, right?  We live a pretty good life and God should give us what’s coming to us in the end.  There’s no reason to bargain or haggle.  Just give us what’s fair, God.

Well, amazingly, the landowner goes back to the marketplace one last time, just an hour before quitting time.  And wouldn’t you know it, there are still some poor schlepps standing around.  He asks, “Why are you standing here all day.”  They state the painfully obvious, “Because no one hired us.”  And he sends them out to work in the field.  These must really be some desperate folk.  Maybe they figured the landowner might at least feed them supper for doing a little clean-up work.  I guess when you can’t get what’s fair, you’ll take what you can get.  Maybe they’ll at least get a scrap or two.  An hour’s work is better than nothing.

During my time teaching at St. Andrews in North Carolina the make-up of my classes became pretty predictable.  I would always have pretty similar sets of students.  I would have the religious studies majors and the students planning to go to seminary.  I would have a handful of zealots, who were often new to their faith and wanted to learn more about religion.  Of course, there were always some who just needed to fill in a space in their schedule and thought that a religion course might be interesting or easy, or both.  But for a couple of years I had another group that were following me around that left everybody wondering, including me.  I called them my motley crew.

They weren’t bad students, but not the cream of the crop either.  It was well known that several in the group probably smoked a little too much weed.  None of them had any interest in majoring or minoring in religion.  They were far from churchy or even religious, really.  At first, I thought it was just that they enjoyed a little banter about God and my conversational teaching style.  Then I began to learn their stories.  One of the young women had lost her brother at a very young age.  Another was in the process of coming out of the closet and dealing with a family that wasn’t very accepting of her sexuality.  One of the young men had a very difficult relationship with his father.  They all had big questions and lots of them.

Thinking about them through the lens of this parable, I think they were just looking for a few scraps.  The church was offering way too much and not nearly enough all at the same time.  They weren’t looking for any churchy bargain.  Some of them also probably thought that they weren’t worthy of a fair deal.  So they took a few religion courses.   Slowly they started asking their questions and wrestling with them.  They spent their hour in the field and were happy to do so.

Back in our story, when the last hour was up, the pay was doled out.  They lined up last to first: the one-hour laborers in front looking for scraps, next were the the three, the six and the nine, looking for a fair shake, and last the twelve-hour laborers ready to get what they bargained for.  Everybody looked on as the drama unfolded.  The one-hour laborers were given a full day’s wage!  Can you imagine the surge of energy in the room?  The motley crew must have been bowled over.  I’m sure they sheepishly collected their pay and disappeared as fast as possible, before anyone had any opportunity to change their mind.  The other workers must have been a buzz too.  “If these schlepps got a full day’s wage, what’s in store for us?”

Well, we soon find out.  The three-hour laborers come forward and receive a full day’s wage, too.  The six-hour laborers – a full day’s wage and the three-hours received the same.  We’re not told what, if anything, these laborers had to say, but I’m sure they went away murmuring something.  You certainly cannot call this ‘fair.’  But which way does ‘fair’ cut here?  That those who worked nine hours received the same as those who worked three is certainly an injustice.  But can you complain if you receive twelve hour’s pay for nine hours work?  Isn’t that a bargain?  Those promised fairness were left to wonder just what fair is.

Finally, the first laborers come forward and they probably could imagine where this was headed.   True to form they received what they bargained for – one full day’s wage for one full day’s work.  But they were indignant.  “This, decidedly, is not fair!  These last schlepps worked only an hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”  They’d forgotten about what they bargained for and now they were all about what’s fair.  And we can’t blame them, can we?  Obviously this is bad business.  You can’t pay people the same who don’t work the same.

And it’s bad religion, too.  Does this imply that the old drunk who makes a confession in the eleventh hour will be rewarded just the same as us?  Does that mean what we do in this life doesn’t matter?  Maybe we should live it up.  Why labor in the field and make sacrifices and work so damned hard at being faithful and living a decent life if this is how it comes down in the end?  Wouldn’t we be ticked, too, if this is how it worked?

Well, what comes next in the story is probably the most startling part.  The landowner fights back.  “I’ve done you no wrong.  I gave you what you bargained for.  Take what belongs to you and go.”  In effect, the landowner says, “If you don’t like it, get out.”

Now throughout the sermon we’ve been making the analogy explicit in its application to religion, so it wouldn’t be fair to stop short here.  Imagine it:  We get ticked and start wagging our fingers at God about the fairness of this whole exchange.  “This is no bargain, God, no bargain at all.  We labor all day and the one who comes in the eleventh hour gets the same reward.  It’s just not fair.”  And God responds simply, “If you don’t like it get out.  I do what I want with what’s mine.  Go on.  Get out!”

I thought about ending the sermon there.  That’s where the parable ends.  But I’m convinced that it’s not where the message ends.  You see, it really is no bargain at all.  In the end all of this talk of transactions and fair wages falls on its head when what we’re trying to talk about is grace.  Grace is no bargain at all.  There’s no hiring and haggling, no bartering and bargaining.  Grace is a gift, it’s not a wage.  Grace isn’t measured in more or less or when or under what conditions.  Grace is immeasurable.  Whether we’re looking for a bargain, or a fair shake, or just a few scraps, when grace comes we get much more than we bargained for.  Grace is the air we breathe and the life we live.  It’s the love we share and the forgiveness we’ve been given.  Grace is a precious, precious gift – no bargain at all.

On Forgiveness

“On Forgiveness”

Matthew 18:21-35

Daniel J. Ott

 

We all know that we should forgive.  But the question remains, “Just how much?”  If you’re like me, I’m sure you can think of many times when you have forgiven.  I think of myself as basically a forgiving person.  But I also can think of things that I have not forgiven.  There are some wrongs that have been done to me that I just can’t let go.  Some of these wrongs just seem too great to be forgiven; or they caused too deep a wound in me; or the person who did the wrong never did try to right the wrong, leaving me feeling as though the person was not worthy of my forgiveness.  Sure we all know that we should forgive.  But isn’t there some limit?  Do we have to forgive always?  Do we have to forgive everything?

Matthew’s parable wrestles with these questions.  And Matthew himself may get a little tangled in the answers.  And so may we.

Let’s start with the servant.[1]  In my study Bible the heading to this story calls him the “unforgiving servant.”  But is he really so bad?  A co-worker was having some trouble.  He loaned him a few hundred dollars.  So far so good, right?  Time goes by and the co-worker never pays him back.  Finally, he happens upon the guy and says, “Hey, what’s doin’?  Where’s that money I leant you?”  The co-worker says he can’t pay and asks for a break.  The servant has had enough, though, and decides to take the matter up in the courts.

Now I guess we could call this “unforgiving.”  But would any of us act so differently?  We all need to be responsible for our debts, right?  Our whole banking system, our whole economic system is based on this basic assumption.  We take loans and we pay them back.  If we don’t pay them back, there are legal ramifications.  What would happen if banks and mortgage companies just started forgiving debts left and right?  Are they “unforgiving” when they insist on repayment?

Of course, the reason that this servant seems so unforgiving is because of the contrast set up by the parable.  Just before the servant demands payment from his co-worker, he himself has been forgiven a great debt.

The story goes that the boss was reconciling his books.  He comes across our servant and sees that he owes ten thousand talents.  Now when I first read the story I thought to myself, “Oh, ten thousand talents, sounds like a goodly sum.”  But Matthew’s audience would have gasped at hearing that number.  A talent is worth fifteen years of a laborer’s wages.  Ten thousand talents is like a billion dollars.  How’s a regular schmoe going to pay back a billion dollars?  How in the world did he end up a billion dollars in debt?  What’s wrong with this guy?  So the boss comes to a fairly logical conclusion for the day.  Sell everything he’s got, including his family and him and get what you can.  What else can you do with such a deadbeat?

So the servant makes a scene and falls on his knees blathering and begging, saying, “Just give me a little more time.”  “Really?,” the boss thinks to himself, “Just a little more time and you’ll pay me back a billion dollars, eh?”  The boss has a flash of pity and decides to let the poor schlepp go.  He wipes the books clean and sends him on his way.

And this is the reason why we get so indignant about the servant’s unforgiving attitude toward his co-worker.  How can you receive forgiveness of such a huge debt and turn right around and harshly demand payment on a much smaller debt?  The servant had been forgiven an immeasurable debt, but did not learn forgiveness from this experience.

This is the ‘gotcha moment,’ of course.  The finger that wags and points at the servant turns right around at us.  How can we who have been forgiven of so much not forgive others?  God forgives us all of our sin.  God forgives the wrongs that we have done to God and the wrongs that we have done to each other.  God demands no payment at all for these sins.  When our account comes due, God simply wipes the books clean and sends us on our way.  And when we fail to forgive each other, we are that unforgiving servant who has been forgiven so much, but cannot see fit to forgive a little.

The force with which Matthew drives home this point is startling.  The boss hands the servant over to be tortured and Matthew puts these words on Jesus’ lips, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your sister or brother from your heart.”  Well, that’s not very forgiving is it?  The message can’t really be that if we don’t forgive, God won’t forgive.  This forgiveness business is tricky.  It’s hard to get our minds around the great mercy of God.  But I believe the message that Matthew was shooting for, even if he didn’t quite hit the mark, remains:  God’s forgiveness is limitless and so should ours be.

Two stories (ripped from the headlines as it were):

On October 2, 2006, a man named Charles Carl Roberts entered the one room West Nickel Mines School in Lancaster, County, PA.  At about 10:36 that morning the first call was made to 911 explaining that the gunman had let several adults, boys and small children go, but was holding hostage around ten girls between the ages of 6 and 13.  The police responded within minutes.  But soon after they arrived at around 11:07 shooting began in the school house.  By 11:11 the police on the scene alerted dispatch that there were 10-12 victims with head wounds.  Roberts had shot ten little girls before killing himself.  Five of the girls died in the end.  The five that survived live with various persistent injuries.

The world watched as a little Amish village in Pennsylvania dealt with their pain and grief.  We were all amazed by the scenes of forgiveness that followed.  Reports emerged that on the very same day of the shooting the grandfather of one of the murdered girls was overheard telling his family, “We must not think evil of this man.”  The family of the shooter reported that members of the Amish community reached out in consolation to them for their loss within hours of the massacre.  Amish community members attended Charles Roberts’ funeral and even established a charitable fund for the family that he left behind.  In an open letter to the Amish community thanking them for their forgiveness and grace, Marie Roberts wrote, “Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need.  Gifts you’ve given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe.  Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you.”[2]

On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger planes.  At 8:46 in the morning five hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center’s North Tower.  At 9:03 a.m. another five hijackers crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower.  At. 9:37 a third plane crashed into the Pentagon.  United Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03 after passengers struggled with that plane’s hijackers.  In the end almost three thousand people were dead including the hijackers.

The world watched as a great nation dealt with its pain and grief.  The question of forgiveness in the wake of this heinous attack is a difficult one, but what is sure is that the scenes that followed hardly resembled the scenes from that little Amish village.  Three days after the event, our then president stood in the midst of the rubble in New York City and vowed revenge.  The so-called “war on terror” was launched immediately.  American troops were in Afghanistan before thirty days had expired.  Not two years later, Iraq was identified as the central front in the war on terror and military initiatives were expanded.  Ten years later, the war in Afghanistan rages on and troops remain in Iraq.  On May 2 of this year, the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. troops.  Our current president told those of us who wondered whether this assassination was necessary that we should have our heads examined.

Our grief and anger have also led to ill-effects at home.  A nation that once prided itself on its immigrant roots has grown intolerant and insular.  Muslim Americans have become the targets of hate crimes and deep suspicion.  Ignorant Christians have hosted burnings of Islam’s holy book.  Congress has even held hearings casting a wide net and suggesting that all of Islam is threatened by radicalization.  Muslim Americans, who lost their own on 9/11, have had their patriotism put into question and been forced to become apologists for their faith.

We all know that we should forgive.  But the question remains, “Just how much?”  When asked to put a number on it, Jesus said, “seventy times seven.”  In other words, as much as it takes.  God’s forgiveness is limitless.  What about ours?

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[1] Throughout this treatment of the parable, I am following David Buttrick rather closely.  David Buttrick, Speaking Parables:  A Homiletic Guide, (Louisville, Kentucky:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), pp. 107-113.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting

The Law of Love

“The Law of Love”

Romans 13:8-10

Daniel J. Ott

As a pastor and a religion professor, I’m often asked some interesting questions.  Students, parishioners, neighbors, hairdressers seem to save up their questions and pop them on me when they get me alone.  And I don’t mind, but I’m sometimes surprised at the nature of the questions.  They are not usually about what God is like, or, “What is a Trinity?,” or “How should I pray?”  They’re almost always about ethical or moral issues.  “Let me tell you what my cousin did.  Do you think that’s right or wrong?”  “What do you think about premarital sex – or abortion – or divorce?”  These are not easy questions and I think I almost always leave the person asking the question a bit disappointed.  You see, I don’t give the most straightforward answers in the world.  And it’s not just that I don’t want to get on the wrong side of my hairdresser’s debate with her cousin as she cuts my bangs, it’s also because I don’t think morality is as black and white as we would like for it to be.  We’d all like to have a little rulebook where we could look up our particular moral dilemma in the index, turn to the applicable page and read the answer.  Problem solved.  Or even better, just corner the local expert.  See what he has to say.  But it’s just not that simple or easy.

When asked to name the greatest commandment, Jesus famously responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  This is the greatest commandment.  And a second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets.”  Paul likewise says succinctly, “The one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  Love is the fulfillment of the law.”  Jesus and Paul both rejected legalistic approaches to morality and emphasized that love alone has the power to put us into right relationships with one another and with God.  No set of rituals, no legal code however sound, no abstract ideals or moral postulates can ultimately put us in right relationship with God and neighbor.  The only thing that can set us on the right moral path is real, concrete love.

And that complicates matters.  That might sound funny to say, but grounding our morality in love complicates matters.  For one thing, love is boundless.  If we could consult a rulebook, we could just do what it says and be done.  But love demands that we go further.  Love shatters the law and asks not, “What am I required to do?,” but “What should I do?,” “What is the best I can do.”  Love demands that we go not only the mile required but a second mile, that we give not only our coats, but our cloaks as well.

Another reason why love complicates matters is that love is risky.  If we could ascertain the highest ideals or perfect our legal code, then we’d know when something was right and when something was wrong.  We could rest assured that if everyone would just abide by our guidelines, then the world would be all right.  But love gives no guarantees.  The famous psychologist, Erich Fromm said, “Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person.  Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.”

The third reason that love complicates matters is that love takes effort.  If love is to be the ground of morality, then it will demand that we press past moral deliberation or discernment toward the hard work of actually acting lovingly.  We can’t just think about it, we have to do it.  Love is work, hard work.  Love demands sacrifice and compromise.  Love demands that we listen to others and strain to understand them.  Love demands that we give of ourselves for the good of another even if the other may give no good in return.

But even though love complicates matters, even though love is complex and risky and difficult, Jesus and Paul boldly assert that morality should be rooted in love, that love is the greatest commandment and the fulfillment of the law.

Well, I was taught well that when talking about moral matters we shouldn’t stay too long in the abstract.  We should tackle some cases.  And lucky for us, Paul mentions a few.  Paul writes, “The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love.”  Now at first blush this might seem a fairly random selection of commandments.  They’re not the first few or the last few as they’re listed in Exodus or Deuteronomy.  So it got me wondering about why Paul mentions these commandments.  Then it hit me:  Sex, Violence, and Materialism.  If that list doesn’t get at the heart of morality, then I don’t know what list would.  Let’s look at each.  I’m going to take them out of order.

First, materialism and covetousness:  I’ve been working with students this week, reading the Bhagavad Gita, a holy book in the Hindu tradition.  Hinduism teaches us that many people are on the path of desire.  Many people spend their lives seeking pleasure or success or some combination of the two.  But the Gita teaches that we should seek to transcend our attachment to things and to worldly accomplishments, because these things are only temporary and pursuing them can lead to suffering.  There’s a great passage:   “If a [person] keeps dwelling on sense objects, attachment to them arises; from attachment, desire flares up; from desire, anger is born; from anger, confusion follows; from confusion, weakness of memory;  weak memory – weak understanding; weak understanding – ruin.”[1]

I told my students that we could think about this in terms of a promotion at work.  I start thinking about the promotion.  I get attached to the idea of a promotion.  I start dreaming about it and planning on it.  It becomes the object of my desire.  I want that promotion.  I deserve the promotion.  I think the promotion is rightfully mine.  Then the numbskull in the cubicle next to mine gets the promotion.  Now I’m angry.  How could my idiot boss give numbskull the promotion?  How could numbskull get MY promotion?  Now I’m confused.  I start rehearsing what it is that I did or didn’t do.  I obsess over little things that were said and I even start to create my own story about what went wrong.  Soon the story takes on a life of its own.  My memory is tainted.  Now I know why numbskull got the promotion – He’s always been a kiss-up.  And my idiot boss never has appreciated me like she should.  Going to work becomes hell.  Every interaction with numbskull and my idiot boss drives me up a wall.  I can’t understand why they do the things they do.  They seem to have it out for me.  I’m ruined.  Soon my boss will have no choice but to let me go.

What law code could free us from this sort of moral failure?  We can say simply, “Thou shalt not covet,” but we see how things easily spin out of control, how we are trapped by our desires.  The law of love might free us, though.  And here the love does not even need to be for the other.  I could free myself from this vicious cycle by first loving myself.  If I love myself more than that promotion; if I love myself more than the things I possess or the things that I accomplish, then I will not be so attached to those things and I will not be tempted to travel the road of desire toward ruin.  Further, if I love myself more than that promotion, then the possibility of loving numbskull is opened up.  I can love numbskull, even if he has something that I thought I wanted, because I realize that both numbskull and I are much more valuable than things.  The law of love can free us from covetousness and materialism.

Test case #2, adultery:  Talking about the law of love is helpful in two ways.  First, as we’ve noted we realize that love is the fulfillment of the law.  Love sums up the law.  But it’s also helpful to note that love is a kind of law itself.  Love takes moral effort and requires responsibility.

Our culture can lure us into mistaking love for an emotion or mere sentiment.  Or maybe it’s even worse than that.  Sometimes we begin to think of love as a sort of primal drive or even a kind of magic.  We imagine that we fall in and out of love.  We forget that we are responsible agents when it comes to love.  A woman looks at her husband and thinks with wonder, “I just don’t love him anymore.”  And she thinks that this has just happened to her, that she has no responsibility in the breakdown of love in their marriage.  A man has sex with a woman who is not his wife and he thinks to himself, “I can’t help it.  I fell in love with her.”  Do you see what has happened here?  The word love becomes a tool to abort the law, rather than being the power that enables us to fulfill the law.  If we fall in and out of love, if love is some magic that happens to us, rather than an action for which we are responsible, then infidelity and unhappy and failed marriages follow quite readily.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke observed, “Like so much else, people have also misunderstood the place of love in life, they have made it into play and pleasure because they thought that play and pleasure was more blissful than work; but there is nothing happier than work, and love, just because it is the extreme happiness, can be nothing else but work…”[2]   Love is work.  It takes effort.  It requires moral strength.  But love is blissful and has the power to heal our relationships and make us whole.  The law of love can free us from adultery.

Our final test case is murder.  There’s a fascinating documentary that I watched some time ago now, called “Flight from Death.”  I recommend it.  It’s based on the work of psychologist Ernest Becker and some contemporary psychologists who have furthered his line of research.  The basic premise is that our fear of death is one of the biggest psychological drivers in our lives. What we do is construct coping mechanisms that allow us to deny the reality of death or otherwise flee from death.  We become the heroes and heroines of our own stories.  We try to make ourselves immortal by building a financial empire, or creating the perfect work of art, or even rearing the perfect family.  Or another way to cope would be to connect ourselves to ideas and structures that help us to think that we are bigger than we are.  Our religions or our national identities become extensions of our selves that secure our immortality.

The problem is that when these false selves or extended selves are threatened, then we perceive the threat as a threat to our very lives.  This is when anger, violence and even murder arise.    When a liberal hears conservative rhetoric, she becomes inordinately angry…Why? – Because she takes it not merely as a threat to her ideas, but a threat on her life. When Western Christians come into contact with Arab Muslims, the clash of ideas causes the two to feel threatened to the core.  Anger, violence and even killing result.

Love, again, is the only way forward.  Jesus asked us to love even our enemies.  He asked us to love even when we feel threatened.  He gave us the example as he loved even from the cross.

Paul says, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor” – the neighbor next door with whom you disagree; the neighbor who lives down the street, but comes from another country; the neighbor across the aisle who sees the world differently than you; and the neighbor across the globe who has a different way of life, a different culture and a different religion.  The law of love can free us from violence and killing.

Sisters and brothers, owe no one anything, except to love one another for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.  All the commandments are summed up in this, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  The law is love and love is the law.

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[1] Stephen Mitchell, trans. Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation, (New York:  Three Rivers Press, 2000), p. 58.

[2] As quoted by Bell Hooks in All About Love: New Visions, (New York:  Perennial, 2000), p. 183.

Where Two or Three Are Gathered

“Where Two or Three are Gathered”

Matthew 18: 15-20

Rev. Dr. Teri McDowell Ott

August 29^th, 2011 – Monmouth College Chapel Service

 

I have always appreciated the sense of family one can feel as a member of a church.  This is particularly true in the small church.  My husband, Dan, and I have both served as pastors of small churches.  After finishing his coursework for his Ph.D. in California Dan was wooed across the country to a small, rural community in Jefferson, SC by me (oh…the things you do for love) where he pastored Rocky Creek Presbyterian Church and worked on his dissertation.  To this day, I am still impressed by the way the small town, blue collar, deeply Southern members of Rocky Creek welcomed Dan….a liberally minded intellectual type, moving to South Carolina from Los Angeles, California.  Their worlds couldn’t have been farther apart.  But Rocky Creek adopted Dan (and me) as their own.  We were a part of the church family.

Later, I served as the pastor of Cameron Presbyterian Church in North Carolina and Dan directed the church choir.  This was where our babies were born and baptized.  While both of us were busy leading worship our babies were being passed from one member of the church to another because Isaac and Ella were not just our children there…but the church’s children…and they were loved extremely well.  In fact, when Dan and I announced the news that we were moving to Monmouth the folks at Cameron were sad, but they understood our sense of call.  They were willing to send us off with their blessing…..but, they said, you have to leave the children.  J Eventually we negotiated their release by promising to send lots and lots of pictures.

Now that we are here in Monmouth, Dan and I have both appreciated the sense of community we have found here…in our churches…Dan is the part-time supply pastor for Sugar Tree Grove Presbyterian Church….a church as sweet and welcoming as it sounds…in the community of Monmouth….and here at Monmouth College.  One of the benefits of serving a small, residential college is that it does feel like a family.  We live together and we work together.  We know each other and each other’s lives.  We are a family…in fact we often refer to ourselves as the Monmouth College family.

In our scripture text for today, Jesus emphasizes the importance of community.  Jesus tells us today that community is sacred; “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”  Jesus also tells us that community is family.  We are to care for and respect our community members as we care for and respect our family.  We won’t pick this up from the New Revised Standard Version of the text that we read today, but Jesus uses familial language to speak of community.  A more literal translation of verse 15 is “If a brother (or sister) sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”  By using this familial language Jesus raises the bonds of community to a higher level.  As a community we are to care for one another.  But as a family, as brothers and sisters, we are obligated to care for one another.  No matter what happens….you can’t leave your brother behind…he will always be your brother.  No matter how much you fight and squabble with your sister….you are bound together by your birth…you are family.  This, Jesus says, is how we are to relate to each other in community.  We have an obligation to care for each other and respect each other, even when conflict arises.  And conflict always arises…whenever human beings live together in community conflict is inevitable.

In the church conflict arises when marriages break apart and members are forced to choose sides.  Heated debates take place over the interpretations of scripture or the use of church polity.  Feelings get hurt and people sulkingly and silently disappear.  And, of course, there is always the color of the carpet…we never really can agree over the color of the carpet.

Conflict also inevitably arises in a college community…especially one such as ours that values a diversity of voices and encourages questioning and debate.  Students will know conflict with other students, faculty with other faculty, staff with other staff, and roommates…well how can you not fight with your roommate when you are sharing such a small space….just don’t hurt each other, okay?  (I hear a lot of crazy stories as a part of the Student Affairs staff…so just don’t hurt each other.)

But we are a family, Jesus says to us today.  We are a family in this sacred space of community.  So we are obligated to each other.  We are obligated to respect each other and care for each other even in the midst of conflict.  I appreciate Jesus’ advice today for the practicality of it.  When someone offends you, or sins against you, go to that person directly.  Speak to him or her about it.  Work to resolve it.  Don’t talk to everyone else about it, except for the person with whom you are angry.  Don’t blast off an angry email or post your gripe on Facebook.  Have enough respect for the relationship, for the relationship with your brother or sister, to deal with them directly.

If this doesn’t work, then, Jesus says, get the community involved, because it is a community issue.  Unresolved conflict is a festering wound that affects the whole community.  If two sorority sisters are at odds with each other…everyone feels the conflict and the whole sorority suffers.  If two church members can’t stand the sight of each other…the whole church body is forced to tiptoe around the tension….and how much good work can we actually do on tiptoe?

If getting the community involved still doesn’t resolve the conflict then Jesus says, “Let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”  Oftentimes we read this line with relief…oh good, we say to ourselves….if I can’t resolve the conflict then I can just let that person go…I can be done with them.  But this is not how Jesus intended this line to be read.  All we have to do is remember how Jesus, at every turn, extended himself graciously to Gentiles and tax collectors, to prostitutes and lepers, to all those pushed outside of the community…to truthfully interpret this line.  Jesus commands us never to give up on our brother or sister.  Never stop reaching out in love to them.  Never stop yearning for grace to restore what has been broken.  Never stop caring for and respecting the members of your family.  ”In the next few verses beyond this passage in Matthew, Peter needs to make sure he has heard Jesus correctly, ‘Lord, if a brother sins against me how often should I forgive? Jesus’ ‘seventy times seven’ response means, ‘as long as it takes.’”[1]

I recently had a wonderful conversation with a student in which he asked me, essentially, why I choose to follow Jesus.  Now there are lots of reasons why I choose to follow Jesus, lots of reasons why I love Jesus.  But the answer that came to me in that moment was “Because Jesus teaches me not just how to be a good Christian, but how to be a good human being.”  People, all people, are important.  Healthy relationships are essential for a healthy life.  And community is sacred, because it is God who draws us together.

Now to this God who has brought us to this community be all honor and glory, thanksgiving and power, now and forevermore.  Amen.

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[1] Charles Hambrick-Stowe, “Theological Perspective”, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 4, (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, KY, 2011), pg. 48.

Follow Me

Follow Me

Matthew 16:13-28

Daniel J. Ott

 

Sometimes I think that being a Christian is way to easy for us here in the U.S. in 2011.  Other times I think that being a Christian is just about impossible living in our culture and in our time.

I remember reading about some Chinese Christians just a few months back.  They were members of what is commonly called a ‘house church’ in China, but this is no house church like you or I would imagine.  There are about 1000 members in this ‘house church,’ which is unregistered and unrecognized by the Chinese government.  Nobody knows for sure, but conservative estimates are that about 80 million of China’s 100 million Christians attend these ‘house churches.’  The government’s attention to these churches ebbs and flows.

The headline was that as many as 200 members of this particular house church were detained when they tried to worship in public.  It seems that their attempts at securing a building in which to worship had been frustrated by the government, so they had planned to worship publicly as a kind of soft protest.  The government found out about the plan and placed their leaders under house arrest on Saturday night.  Hundreds still showed up at the designated areas, but were greeted by police and plainclothes security agents who herded them onto busses, confiscated their cell phones, interrogated them, and “made them sign documents promising not to worship outdoors again.”[1]  Some refused to sign and were kept in custody.

Thank God that professing Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of the Living God is easier for us than this.  But we should remember that it was not so for Peter and the other early followers of Jesus.  Much is at stake as Peter answers Jesus’ query, “Who do you so that I am?”  Peter’s answer, if and when it fell on the right ears, would be heard as heresy and sedition.  To say that Jesus is the Son of the Living God marks a break with traditional Jewish faith.  During Jesus’ life and after, Jesus’ followers contended with Jewish authorities and became something of an outcaste sect.  They were a minority group often seen as fanatical.  Being Christian was not easy.

To say that Jesus is the Messiah is to say that he is the bringer of the Kingdom of God.  In the Kingdom of God, the powerful will be brought down from their thrones and the rich will be sent empty away.  God will rule over all the earth and his Messiah will be seated at his right hand.  Can you imagine how Caesar or one of his client kings would react to such a proclamation?  Well, tradition says that they, in fact, hanged Peter on a cross head downwards.  Being Christian was not easy.

Thank God, making a confession of faith is easier for us today.  But maybe we make it too easy.  I think we might.  I think there at least two brands of Christians who make Christianity pretty easy.  Maybe this morning we can call them ‘Rock Christians’ and ‘Stumbling Block Christians.’

Rock Christians are the ones who are good at bricks and mortar.  They’re the ones that build great buildings and great institutions.  But many times they get pretty comfortable in that big building they build and the religion that they practice never leaves its four walls.  These are comfortable Christians, bourgeois, if you will.

In his novella Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre gives a description of a typical Sunday morning that shows how absurd this bourgeois religion can be.  Doctor So-and-So stops to tip his hat to Monsieur Such-and-Such as the Who’s Who of the little Suburban town of Bouville stroll up and down the promenade on their way to and from church.  Some stop in at the new bakery to taste the perfect confectionaries.  Others carefully choose their spot at the café – it must be prominent enough to be seen by those passing by and private enough that gossip can be shared.  Sartre describes the scene in so much detail, as is his style, that the banality of this charade becomes painfully obvious.  How can people this comfortable be Christian?  Perhaps you and I aren’t quite this comfortable, but I wonder if we Presbyterians as a group don’t fall pretty neatly into the category of Rock Christians

On the other end of the spectrum are the ‘Stumbling Block’ Christians.  These folks can’t be said to suffer from gentility, as do the Rock Christians.  Whereas Rock Christians are cool and collected, Stumbling Block Christians run red-hot. Whereas Rock Christians are keen on establishment, Stumbling Block Christians overflow with unbridled zeal.  They adore Jesus.  They sing of their love with uplifted hands.  They go to Christian concerts and festivals and they dance and whirl about in ecstasy. They speak often of their intimate relationship with Jesus. They cling to Jesus.  And sometimes I wonder if this might be a problem.

When Jesus told his disciples that he would have to suffer and be killed, Peter immediately piped up and said, “God forbid it, Lord!  This must never happen to you.”  And why did Peter object so adamantly?  Because he didn’t understand, of course, but also because he loved Jesus.  He adored Jesus.  He didn’t want Jesus to suffer and die.  He wanted to continue to walk hand-in-hand with Jesus, to lay his head on Jesus’ breast, to eat with him and speak with him and to tell him how much he loved him.  Peter clings to Jesus and says, “This must never happen to you.”  But Jesus turns to loose his grasp and says, “Get behind me.  You are a stumbling block.”

 

You see loving Jesus is the easy part.  For us, testifying that Jesus is the Son of God and Messiah is not hard or risky.  Building a church and coming here on Sunday morning is pretty simple.  But following Jesus is hard.

Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”  Let’s pause here for a minute and think about what Jesus is telling his disciples.  “Let them deny themselves.”  Deny themselves of what?  Well, Jesus demanded of his closest disciples that they leave their jobs and their homes and their families, that they radically rethink their faith, and that they take positions that basically mark them as rebels in the Roman Empire.  “Let them take up their cross.” Jesus walked and asked his disciples to walk under the constant pall of death – and not just any death, but death by one of the most horrific tools of torture and public humiliation known to the history of humankind.  Jesus said, “When you’ve denied yourself of your comfort, your home, your family, your people and you’re ready to carry the cross on which you will suffer and die, then you can follow me.” That’s not easy.

So, what do we do with this text?  Can we put at arm’s-length and say maybe it was addressed to those first disciples and not to those of us who want to follow Jesus today?  Maybe.  I do think people in different contexts can and should hear Jesus’ words differently.  We don’t live under foreign oppression or tyranny, so perhaps we are not called to take up our cross in any literal way.  Unless we feel called to the mission field or the monastery, perhaps likewise we’re not called to give up our homes and families and jobs.  But, on the other hand, I wonder, are these just the justifications of comfortable Christians?

Or perhaps we don’t have to take this text so literally.  Couldn’t we think about the spiritual lesson that Jesus is conveying when he says that his followers should deny themselves and take up their crosses?  Well, of course, I’m not against looking past the literal to see what is going on symbolically.  Denying ourselves and putting Christ first is indeed a powerful image.  We can even say that we are put to death in Christ so that we can live anew.  “The old life has gone and a new life has begun.”  There’s certainly truth in this line of thinking, but there’s also what seems to me a dangerous disconnect with the fact that Jesus and Peter and the prophets and martyrs throughout the ages actually left home and comfort and suffered in their very bodies and they died.

Perhaps the most faithful thing we can do with this text is to ask ourselves some honest questions this morning?  Are we really ready to follow Jesus?  Is there any sense in which we can say that we’re ready to deny ourselves?  What exactly are we ready to give up?  What would it mean to lose our lives so that we might gain them?

One of the most rewarding and frustrating parts of being a professor and working with students is advising.  Usually, the most effective advising does not happen around choosing classes and majors.  It happens in conversations in the classroom or in the lunchroom.  And I take it as part of my little mission in the world to try to get students to think a little more broadly about what they might do in college and afterward.  I ask them to think about how they can make a difference in the world.  I ask them to think about not only what would make them happy, but what would be helpful to others.  I ask them to think about the meaning of life itself and how study and work fit into that larger picture.  And I’m glad to report that students are interested in having these conversations.  They have ideas about what makes life meaningful and how to make the world a better place.  Sometimes they even start to re-imagine their studies and/or their careers and see how they can do things differently and make a difference.

But then often enough something happens.  They have a conversation with a friend or a fiancé or they go back home and talk to Mom or Dad and they lose that vision.  They start talking about needing a job, providing for a family, paying the bills, wanting to be as successful as Dad.  And of course there’s nothing wrong with those things necessarily and of course it’s not the fault of the friend or the Mom or the Dad, but it’s frustrating.  It’s frustrating that we as a culture do that to these kids.  You see, we don’t ask them, “What will it profit you if you gain the whole world, but forfeit your life?”  We don’t tell them that those who lose their life will gain everything.  We don’t ask them to deny themselves of anything.  We don’t ask them, because we don’t ask ourselves.

Jesus says, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

 

 

 

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[1] npr.org

How do I become a Christian?

“How do I become a Christian?”

First, you’ll need to go to church.  Church is where Christians worship God, learn about Jesus and try to honor Jesus’ teaching by the way they live together and the way they live with their neighbors.  I’m Presbyterian so, of course, I would suggest you try one of our churches, but I highly recommend that you go to one of the ‘mainline’ churches: Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal, Lutheran or Presbyterian.  These are the churches with the longest histories and the richest traditions.  Don’t ‘shop’ too much.  Find a place where you are reasonably comfortable and folks seem to be at least trying to live Christian lives and stick with it.  You’ll soon learn that there are no perfect churches.  Churches are made up of Christians and Christians are human, so don’t expect too much.

Next, you should probably read the Bible.  Don’t start at the beginning!  Start with the Gospels.  Mark is the shortest and simplest.  I’d start there.  Notice what Jesus does.  He heals the sick, he ministers to the poor and outcast, and he talks a lot about the Kingdom of God.

That’s your next clue.  You’ll have to do these things too.  Christians try to figure out what the world would be like if God were in charge.  Usually, it involves caring for the vulnerable, building loving and just communities, and opposing forces in the world that seek to spread fear, hate, violence and death.

I would say that this will give you a good start.  Sorry if it doesn’t sound easy, but the reality is it’s not.  Becoming a Christian is something that you’ll need to work on everyday for the rest of your life.  It certainly has its rewards, though, starting with the gifts of faith, hope and love.

A couple of things to remember:  1) Becoming a Christian is not about praying a magic prayer that gets you into heaven.  Faith is a journey and it is as much about the here and now as it is the hereafter.  2) It’s not all about you.  You’ll need to join with other Christians and learn to live, worship and work together.  You’ll also need to learn to serve others.

 

 

This entry is part of a series of answers to Christian FAQs.  For more information about the idea behind the series and the approach being taken by the authors check out:  http://aflyonourwall.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/christian-faqs/

 

Reconciliation

“Reconciliation”

Genesis 33:1-17

Daniel J. Ott

 

Does anyone really want reconciliation today?  Do we want to be reconciled?  Several scenes from this week made me wonder.

The debt ceiling debate drove me nuts.  Teri had to tell me to put down my mobile devices, I was so obsessed with the stupid thing.  I’ve been disaffected with American politics for sometime, but even I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  First there were seemingly fruitful bipartisan talks:  Simpson-Bowles and then the ‘gang of six.’  Then Coburn walked out on the gang.  And then he was back.  And then the president started having his talks.  Those seemed to be making progress.  Then Cantor waived the Tea Party flag and those talks came to halt.  Then Boehner and the president were going to work things out.  One had a press conference, the other walked out.  Then the House was going to solve everything.  The vote was scheduled… and then delayed.  New deals were made.  The House passed it the Senate rejected it.  The Senate had their plan, even though everybody knew it wouldn’t fly.  McConnell swooped in and met with the president, a deal was struck, and finally… finally on Tuesday, they passed a law that would raise the debt ceiling in the short run and lower the overall deficit in the long run.

This was a completely aggravating drama to watch, but what perhaps infuriated me the most were the headlines that I awoke to on Tuesday morning.  “Who won?,” they asked.  But they didn’t mean, “Who won?” as in “Did retirees win or lose?” or  “Did the economy win or lose?” or “Did poor people win or lose?”  or “Did entitlements or defense budgets win or lose?”  They were asking, “Did Boehner lose power or gain power on the Hill?”  “Was this a small loss for Obama that he could turn into a larger win when it comes election time?”  “Was Mitch McConnell now the most powerful man in Washington?”  “Was this a victory or a defeat for the Tea Party?’  No wonder the process was so aggravating.  Our leaders are playing a zero sum game that at best reflects their own narrow ideological interests and at worst has only to do with reelection.  Where are the leaders ready to humble themselves and make compromises with the best interests of our nation and our planet in mind?  When will we elect some folks who are ready to put party politics a side and seek justice and reconciliation?

On a more personal level and perhaps more tragic, I witnessed a family in deep need of reconciliation when I took Isaac to his swimming lesson this week.  I guess you could call them a family.  They were at least all related to this cute little boy who has the brightest eyes and a Mohawk for his summer cut.  Most of the parents retreat to the air-conditioned lobby during the lessons.  I like to stay in the pool area so that I can root Isaac on a little.  This night it was me and this family left by the pool.  Dad sat at one end of the bench.  Mom and Grand-mom sat at the other, me in the middle.  Mom and Dad spent most of their time trying to make sure that their gazes never met.  Grand-mom tried to keep the focus on the boy.  The tension was palpable.  At one point the Dad got up to go to the poolside and happened to walk past Mom.  I thought her head might pop off she got so tense.  They were leaving as we were.  Mom and Grand-mom gave the boy a hug and a kiss while Dad very purposefully stood ten feet away gazing in the other direction.  Eventually, the boy came up behind Dad and grabbed his hand and they walked quietly to his truck.  My heart broke for them.  I wished I was like Jesus.  I wished I could tell them everything they’d ever done.  I wished I could tell them that there was hope, that we can be reconciled.

One final scene made me wonder about the possibility of reconciliation:  Tanks rolling through the streets of Hama, Syria.  The news was that all telecommunications had been cut off along with electricity and water supplies.  President Assad’s troops pushed into what had become the center of a non-violent protest for change in Syria.  Snipers took to the rooftops, initially shooting at whatever moved, according to reports.  News was also trickling out that Assad’s troops were carrying out executions in the streets.  We’re hearing that at least 200 have been killed this week and around 2000 since the uprising began in June.   We can only hope that these numbers won’t climb to the proportions of the massacre of 1982 when President Assad’s father gave the orders and his uncle conducted a scorched-earth campaign that killed as many as 40,000.  The events have certainly reminded us of an ongoing history of violence and tyranny in Syria.  There are no sings of any immanent reconciliation.

We do get glimmers of hope for reconciliation from time to time.  One of these was the work of Bishop Desmond Tutu and his colleagues who led the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the fall of Apartheid.  When the structures of racial supremacy that enforced a system of segregation and caste finally came down and black leaders took charge of the government, nobody was exactly sure what would happen.  But soon those leaders showed that it was their intention to restore civility and community in South Africa and they would do so by actively seeking reconciliation.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission provided a forum for victims of civil and human rights atrocities to give voice to their suffering and even provided for perpetrators to receive amnesty under certain conditions, which included the public acknowledgement of their wrong.

Bishop Tutu was and is a man of peace and wisdom and a great model for reconciliation in our time.  This week, I reviewed an article that he wrote wherein he talks about the necessary steps in true reconciliation.  First, there needs to be a desire for reconciliation.  Reconciliation is of course a two-way street.  If either party is not willing to seek reconciliation, then there can be no reconciliation.  Both parties have to humble themselves, face their fears and come together.

The first formal step in the reconciliation process, then, is confession.  This of course is not easy.  Most of us have a hard time admitting our wrongs.  We want to justify ourselves and so we try to convince ourselves and others that we are right – that we have done no wrong.  But if we want reconciliation, confession is necessary.  Tutu uses the example of a marital dispute.  He asks us to imagine a husband and wife who have quarreled.  The quarrel comes to an end, but there is no admission of any wrong.  They have not discussed the cause of their rift.  The husband brings home a bunch of flowers “and the couple pretend all is in order.”   Tutu insists that “they will be in for a rude shock.  They have not dealt with their immediate past adequately.  They have glossed over their differences, for they have failed to stare truth in the face for fear of a possible bruising confrontation.”  “Forgiving and being reconciled are not about pretending that things are other than they are.  It is not patting one another on the back and turning a blind eye to the wrong.  True reconciliation exposes the awfulness, the abuse, the pain, the degradation, the truth.”[1]

Once this truth is acknowledge than there is the chance for forgiveness.  Forgiveness is not easy and it is not a mere sentiment.  Nor does forgiveness condone or forget the offense.  Forgiveness “means taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence.  It involves trying to understand the perpetrators and to have empathy…”[2]  “Forgiving [also] means abandoning your right to pay back the perpetrator in his own coin, but it is a loss that liberates the victim.”  Tutu uses the example of three ex-servicemen standing at the Vietnam Memorial in DC.  “One asks, “Have you forgiven those who held you prisoner of war?”  “I will never forgive them,” replies the other.  His mate says, “Then it seems they still have you in prison, don’t they.”[3]  “True forgiveness deals with the past… to make the future possible.”  If we live in the past and allow grudges and resentments to poison our relationships then we will never have reconciliation and we will never have peace in the present or in the future.

The final stage of reconciliation is reparation.  We cannot merely apologize and move on if injustice persists.  Tutu cites the ongoing economic disparity between blacks and whites in South Africa as a continuing challenge for the reconciliation process.  In as much as these disparities were caused my Apartheid they must be addressed as part of reconciliation.  In as much as we can address any lasting damage that has been done, reconciliation demands that we do make reparation.  This is not a condition for forgiveness, but it is a necessary final step in reconciliation.

Well, how did old Jacob and Esau do in their effort to be reconciled?  First, they do both show humility and seek reconciliation.  Jacob’s humility is rather formal.  He and his retinue make a procession and pass before Esau bowing as one would before a prince.  Jacob refers to himself as Eau’s servant and addresses him as “My Lord.”  Esau, on the other hand, is much more emotional and follows his gut, as we might expect.  He runs to his brother, embraces him, hugs his neck and weeps.  Both brothers show their readiness to begin the reconciliation process.

So, next comes the confession right?  Jacob has quite a bit to confess.  He needs to tell his brother that he was wrong to take advantage of him and barter with him for his birthright.  He needs to confess to his brother that he stole his blessing.  Perhaps he could tell his brother about his seemingly insatiable desire to be on top at just about any cost.  But, do we get such a confession?  Do we get any admission by Jacob of any wrong?  No.  Jacob has already moved straight to the reparations.  Like a husband trying to smooth things over with gifts, Jacob has sent ahead cattle and servants.

Esau does not want to receive these gifts.  Amazingly, he seems ready to forgive without either confession or reparation.  But Jacob insists, “Pray take my blessing that has been brought you, for God has favored me and I have everything.”  “And he pressed him, and he took it.”

As further evidence of his forgiveness, Esau invites Jacob to journey with him.  Really, Esau is not only inviting Jacob to travel with him, but he is inviting him to be reconciled.  He’s inviting him to reunite their two households.  He’s inviting him to be his brother again and live with him.  But Jacob demurs and even adds one last deceit.  He tells his brother that he will come to him at Seir, which is Esau’s new home and the future home of the Edomites. But Jacob has no such intention of joining his brother at Seir.  When he parts with his brother, he heads in exactly the opposite direction to Shechem, in Canaan.  And this passage, thereby, establishes the everlasting division between the Edomites, the people of Esau and the Israelites, the people of Jacob.  This is a story of two brothers divided, of two nations divided, and a story of a reconciliation that never was.

Merciful God, although Christ is among us as our peace, we are a people divided against ourselves as we cling to the values of a broken world. The fears and jealousies that we harbor set brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor and nation against nation.  Lord, have mercy upon us; heal and forgive us.  Amen.

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[1] Desmond Tutu, “No Future without Forgiveness,” in Approaches to Peace:  A Reader in Peace Studies, David P. Barash, ed. (New York:  Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 278.

[2] Ibid., pp. 278-279.

[3] Ibid., p. 279.