I listened to an interview this week that has totally captivated my imagination. I’m going to resist the temptation to basically just parrot back to you the whole interview, but I posted a link to it on the Trinity Facebook page. I hope you’ll listen to it and come back and talk to me, because I’m so geeked up about it I literally could not sleep Tuesday night.
But before we get to the interview and why I couldn’t sleep, I want to talk a little bit about this Gospel reading for today. Because I think I wouldn’t have found the interview as engaging if I was not already caught up in the challenge Jesus seems to be throwing out in this reading.
The reading opened with the Pharisees plotting to entrap Jesus with some false flattery and a seemingly innocuous question about taxes. But here’s a detail you need to know. The tax the Pharisees are asking about was not just general taxes. This was a very specific tax called a census tax or head tax. It was a tax Rome levied on residents of Roman provinces. Basically, when Rome conquered a region, they then assessed a tax on the residents of that region to pay for the occupying army. It’s like, imagine if one day a giant pit bull showed up and your house and was like, hey, this looks like a sketchy neighborhood, I’m going to move in with you and “protect” you. And, you were like, thanks but no thanks pit bull. I feel pretty safe in my neighborhood, and anyway, you’re terrifying and I don’t really feel comfortable with you living in my house. And pit was like, don’t care, I’m moving in to “protect” you, and you can feed me for the privilege. Oh, and by the way, I only like the really expensive dog food from the refrigerated section. You know, the food that looks and smells better than you feed yourself, and costs twice as much.
Here’s the other thing to know about this tax. It could only be paid in Roman coin. Jerusalem had been a city for long before it became a province of Rome, it had its own currency system in operation. But one of the tools Rome used to gain control was to take over the economy by forcing the introduction of Roman currency. So now imagine the pit bull that’s taken up residence in your home will only accept payment in something they call “dog bucks.” And you have to go out and convert all your money to dog bucks in order to pay this fee for a service you don’t even want in the first place. You can begin to see how this tax was really enraging the Judean people.
The Pharisees asked Jesus about this tax because they knew there was no right answer. If Jesus said yes, you should pay the tax, then all of the people who were joining his movement because they thought he was opposed to the Roman government would be angry. But if Jesus said no, you shouldn’t pay the tax, then he was opening himself up to arrest by the Romans. Either way, the Pharisees thought, they had him.
So what did Jesus do? He said to the Pharisees, “you hypocrites. Show me the coin used to pay the tax.” Remember I said the tax had to be paid in Roman coin? Here’s what I didn’t mention. The Roman coin featured a picture of Tiberus Caesar and the words “Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest.” Written on the coin was a claim of the divinity of the Emperor, a statement which was blasphemous to the Jews who believed in the divinity of the One God. When the Pharisees stood in the Temple, the most sacred place in all of Judea, the place where the One True God was believed to dwell, and in that most sacred place pulled from their pocket a coin claiming the divinity of the emperor, the Pharisees true loyalties were revealed. This conversation was never about whether or not to pay taxes, it was about whether to engage in the system of the empire, a system ruled by fear, in which a few benefited at the expense of the rest, or the system of the kingdom of heaven, in which the mighty are brought down, the weak are lifted up, and five loaves and two fishes is enough to feed multitudes. That coin in the Pharisees pocket revealed their decision, and they were amazed and left him, temporarily at least, and went away.
I think that is really the operating question of this reading. Not, should we pay taxes, but do we want to live under the system of empire or the system of the kingdom of heaven. And because we don’t read this passage in isolation, I started thinking about all the things we’ve learned over the summer about the kingdom of heaven. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, the tiniest of seeds that, when buried in the ground, becomes the largest of shrubs, and the birds make nests in it’s branches. The kingdom of heaven is like yeast hidden in flour, until the baker makes up the loaves and surprise, the loaves rise unexpectedly. The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in the field, it is like a pearl of great price, it is like a net. It is a field of weeds and wheat. It is landowner who wanted all the crops of his tenants, and even they threw him out, he went again and again to collect from them, not withholding even his son in his desperation to gather from them the harvest. It is a party where everyone’s invited, both the good and the bad, but it is not enough to show up and eat the free food. The kingdom of heaven is mysterious, expansive, creative, it cannot be contained or constrained, but it is always just beyond our grasp, just bigger than our imagination. It is, as the prophet Isaiah said in our first reading, “the treasures of darkness and riches hidden in secret places.” Jesus spoke in parables because the kingdom of heaven cannot be explained. Rather it is this nagging hope that there is more than we can know, and that somehow, we are being called to be a part of it. I don’t know about you, but that system, the system of yeast, and seeds, and growth, and life, that is the system I want to be a part of.
So back to this interview. And I’m going to once again resist the temptation to just read the whole thing to you, just oh man, go listen to it. But I will share this one part. The interview was with Economist Muhammad Yunus. Yunus won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his work in alleviating poverty by bringing banking and microlending opportunities to people in poor, rural communities. As part of the conversation, the head of the World Bank talked about how they had changed their structures to play off the best practices that Yunus had developed through his work. At which point the interviewer cut in with a question. Ok, he said, this is all really interesting. But most of us don’t have billions of dollars that we can just loan out to create new economic systems. What can we do? And Yunus responded with these really simple things. Do the thing that you can do. Teach your children to think creatively and entrepreneurially. Build a business, and build a social enterprise on the side. Work for a company that engages in social responsibility. Learn, wonder, ask good questions.
So here’s where my imagination really went crazy. Because it’s stewardship season at Trinity. Next week, we’re all going to be asked what we are going to pledge for the upcoming year. I’ve told you before my financial pattern. Twice a month when I get paid I put ten percent of my income in my retirement account, and I give ten percent away to the church. But this week after thinking about the economic system of the kingdom of heaven, I started wondering if maybe the problem was not in my financial habits, but in the fact that I was thinking about it wrong. Check this. The money I put in my retirement account, I think about that as an investment in my future. I put money in there because I expect it to grow on its own. And I know a little bit about the market, and honestly I don’t really know exactly how Portico does it, I just trust that in forty or so years when I go to get it out, there will be more in there than I put in. I know there is risk involved in this. I was on internship in 2008 when everyone’s retirement accounts tanked, I know the whole thing could go up and I could lose everything. But I pay in, because I think that the risks are outweighed by the reward, that the potential payout is worth the gamble.
I invest in my retirement, but I give my money to the church. You notice the difference in language there. So this week, I’ve changed my mind. I’m thinking of it differently now. From here on out, the amounts stay the same but the intention changes. I’m investing in my retirement and I’m investing in the church. Here’s why that matters. If I’m investing, that means I’m expecting growth, it means I’m expecting something is going to happen. Now, bear with me now, because this is not prosperity Gospel. I’m not saying I’m going to give ten percent of my money to the church and God’s going to give me more money in return. The growth I am talking about is not monetary growth, but instead a growth in the kingdom of heaven. For example: We just bought new furnaces. Think about how that feels. Now, try this, we just invested in new furnaces. Why are the furnaces an investment? Lots of reasons. One: the new furnaces are more fuel-efficient, they are both better for the environment helping us be better stewards of God’s creation, and they are cheaper to operate, helping the money we pay in heating to go down. And if we pay less money for heating, we have more money to put toward other things. Because the furnaces cost less to operate, it costs us less to keep Co-op warm. When the bus drops kids off afterschool, they can wait inside and not be cold. When community groups want to use our space for meetings or activities, we can open it up to them without having to be as concerned about the heating bill. All these opportunities for spreading the kingdom of heaven open up to us, all because we decided to take the risk and invest in new furnaces.
We need a new roof. Not going to lie, the roof was a little tougher, because we don’t pay a monthly “roof bill” like we pay a gas bill. So what’s the return on investment in a roof? People drive by our building all the time, and believe me, they notice the roof. They will notice the new roof, and they will think, that church has life to it. A new roof will allow us to continue to open our space for community events like the movies we showed over the summer, or the candidate forums we hosted last year, without worrying about it raining on our guests. Maybe the roof will give us opportunities for things we haven’t even dreamed of yet. If there’s a crisis, like the hurricanes in Huston or the fires in California and people needed a place to stay, and we’ve invested in a roof, we can house them.
And as the “returns” from these investments start to come in, who knows where we’ll go from here. Maybe we’ll decide we need to invest some time in volunteering with the Food Pantry, or in tutoring GED students at the Woman’s Co-op, or we’ll feel a call to invest our voices as part of BC Vision. Or our relationships as we get to know our neighbors at Georgetown better. Maybe my long-lived dream will come true and we’ll end up owning a trailer park. All I know is what I’ve learned from Jesus’ parables, that the kingdom of heaven is big and messy and grace-filled, creative, and expansive and beautiful. Dear friends in Christ, I’m not giving my money to the church anymore. I am investing in the growth of the kingdom of heaven. I have no idea what God is quite doing with this investment. But I’m taking the risk, trusting in the promise that God is faithful, and that like yeast hidden in wheat it will grow in ways that are miraculous and strange. I hope you will take it along with me. Amen.
Note: You can listen to the interview with Muhammad Yunus on the 1A website: https://the1a.org/shows/2017-10-17/the-father-of-microfinance-has-a-plan-to-fix-capitalism
The extraordinary can look so ordinary
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Conversation Points for Matthew 22:15-22
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This is not a teaching from Jesus about the separation of church and state (a uniquely American idea that would have had no meaning in the first century). Rather it is the next section of the growing controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees, who by this point had already decided to kill him and were looking for an excuse to do so. Here, and in each of their two following attempts (dealing with the resurrection and the Great Commandment), Jesus skillfully managed to affirm their position while still challenging them.
• Matthew uses the Pharisees to represent the church’s opponents in his time, describing them as counters of Jesus, with their own disciples and also echoing the words “What do you think?” (cf. Matthew 21:28). The Herodians represent supporters of the Roman regime and thus supporters of the paying of taxes to the regime.
• The tax in question was not any general tax. It refers to the “census” (kensos) or Roman head-tax, instituted in 6 CE when Judea became a Roman province. Protest to the census tax triggered the Judean nationalism that became the Zealot movement that was already emerging in Jesus’ time and eventually fomented the Jewish Roman War of 66-70 (when the Temple was destroyed). This tax could be paid only in Roman coin, most of which contained an image and inscription considered blasphemous by many Jews (“Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest”).
• The Pharisees question was a trick. If Jesus said you should pay the tax, it would alienate the nationalists. But if he said you shouldn’t, it would make him subject to arrest by the Romans.
• Jesus answers the question by asking the Pharisees for the coin required for the tax. It is notable that Jesus did not have one, but the Pharisees, inside the inner sanctums of the Temple, were able to produce a coin with the emperor’s image and inscription on it. While not clearly answering the question, Jesus does give an indirect yes. It is not against the Torah to pay taxes to the emperor. The Pharisees have already acknowledged this by producing a Roman coin, thus demonstrating that they are participating in the Roman economic system.
• One way to look at this may be the two kinds of righteousness Luther described in his 1535 Commentary on Galatians. Civil righteousness, per Luther, is how we act in society. It can be improved and is something we are responsible for. Spiritual righteousness, on the other hand, is about our relationship with God, and cannot be changed or improved by us.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Thompson, Erick J. “Commentary on Matthew 22:15-22.” Working Preacher.. Accessed 16 October 2017.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• This is not a teaching from Jesus about the separation of church and state (a uniquely American idea that would have had no meaning in the first century). Rather it is the next section of the growing controversy between Jesus and the Pharisees, who by this point had already decided to kill him and were looking for an excuse to do so. Here, and in each of their two following attempts (dealing with the resurrection and the Great Commandment), Jesus skillfully managed to affirm their position while still challenging them.
• Matthew uses the Pharisees to represent the church’s opponents in his time, describing them as counters of Jesus, with their own disciples and also echoing the words “What do you think?” (cf. Matthew 21:28). The Herodians represent supporters of the Roman regime and thus supporters of the paying of taxes to the regime.
• The tax in question was not any general tax. It refers to the “census” (kensos) or Roman head-tax, instituted in 6 CE when Judea became a Roman province. Protest to the census tax triggered the Judean nationalism that became the Zealot movement that was already emerging in Jesus’ time and eventually fomented the Jewish Roman War of 66-70 (when the Temple was destroyed). This tax could be paid only in Roman coin, most of which contained an image and inscription considered blasphemous by many Jews (“Tiberius Caesar, august son of the divine Augustus, high priest”).
• The Pharisees question was a trick. If Jesus said you should pay the tax, it would alienate the nationalists. But if he said you shouldn’t, it would make him subject to arrest by the Romans.
• Jesus answers the question by asking the Pharisees for the coin required for the tax. It is notable that Jesus did not have one, but the Pharisees, inside the inner sanctums of the Temple, were able to produce a coin with the emperor’s image and inscription on it. While not clearly answering the question, Jesus does give an indirect yes. It is not against the Torah to pay taxes to the emperor. The Pharisees have already acknowledged this by producing a Roman coin, thus demonstrating that they are participating in the Roman economic system.
• One way to look at this may be the two kinds of righteousness Luther described in his 1535 Commentary on Galatians. Civil righteousness, per Luther, is how we act in society. It can be improved and is something we are responsible for. Spiritual righteousness, on the other hand, is about our relationship with God, and cannot be changed or improved by us.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Thompson, Erick J. “Commentary on Matthew 22:15-22.” Working Preacher.
Monday, October 16, 2017
The Church at Our Best: A Sermon on Matthew 22:1-14
Not going to lie, my first read through of this one I thought, geez, why wasn’t Amanda’s wedding this weekend! Not that Gloria got a pass last week, that was a doozey as well. But at least last week’s parable didn’t end with Matthew’s trademark “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Fun fact: If you’re ever trying to guess which Gospel a verse came from, if the verse involves “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” it’s Matthew.
But traditionally Matthean or not, it’s a tough phrase to deal with. Especially as Lutherans, we, well I can’t speak for all of you but I, struggle with the judgmental God this parable seems to portray. It may have something to do with how much I dislike shopping, but I’m not always sure what to make of a Jesus who is so particular about clothing.
But Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber talks about how we tend to read parables as prescriptive, if this then that. But parables are more often descriptive, they describe the kingdom of heaven. So what if this parable isn’t about how Jesus is judging your outfit? What Jesus was just telling us how things are?
This parable is the last in a series of parables Jesus told in response to the Pharisees questioning his authority to teach in the temple. This one, last week’s parable on the wicked tenants, and the one the week before about the two sons, are all meant to build on each other. Jesus told them to the Pharisees after he asked them what they thought about John the Baptist and they refused to take a side. So when we hear this parable, we have to resist the habit we’d developed over the summer of putting on our disciple hat to hear it, instead we have to put on our Pharisee hat. This parable is meant to challenge the parts of us who are insiders, who gain power from our association with Christianity, and who use that power to exclude others.
Dr. Eugene Boring pointed out that Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven not to the king, but to the situation of the king who threw a wedding banquet to which no one came. He kept sending slaves to bring in the guests, but still they refused. And not only did they refuse, but they killed the messengers. Eventually the king got fed up, sent his troops out, and destroyed the cities. So what’s the message here? If the parable is prescriptive, the message seems pretty clear. You better come to the party God is throwing, or God will destroy your city. But what if the parable is not prescriptive? What if, as Pastor Bolz Weber thinks, it is descriptive? What is the Old Testament but a story in which Israel turns away from God, God sends a prophet to call them back, they ignore and/or kill the prophet, and then they get conquered. But even as the prophet is warning them of the danger, the prophet also promises God’s presence with them, and even after they are conquered, the prophet promises God is still with them, and eventually, God leads them back from slavery to freedom. And then the story repeats itself. Like last week’s parable, we once again have two sets of slaves who are allegories of the prophets.
I want to be a little careful here, because I’m not saying that God destroyed the people because they didn’t listen to the prophets. It’s like the story of the man sitting on his roof as the flood waters rose and every time someone offered to help him out, he said, no, God’s going to save me. Eventually he drown, and when he went to heaven he asked God, why didn’t you save me. To which God replied, I tried. Who do you think all those people offering to help were? The history of redemption following the destruction doesn’t line up to be a sign of God’s wrath. But if this parable is descriptive, it is a pretty good summary of the events of the Old Testament.
Then the parable goes on. Because the king still had the problem of not having any guests for his party. So he sent his slaves back out to gather up anyone they could find. And soon the hall was filled with guests, both the good and the bad. But when the king entered the hall, he found a guest who was not wearing a wedding robe. And the king was so enraged by the guest’s failure to live up to the dress code, that he had his attendants bind the man and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Before we get too far into this, let’s notice a few things. First, when a king threw a banquet, he often provided the wedding robes for his guests. Part of the purpose of a wedding banquet was for the groom to prove how wealthy and powerful he was, and what better way to do that than to literally dress all your guests. So while an extreme response, it was not unreasonable for the king to expect the guests to be wearing the clothes he gave to them when they entered.
But second, and more important, in the early church, “putting on the robe” was a metaphor for becoming a follower of Jesus. It was a reference to the white robe that new converts would put on after their baptism. This man’s refusal to “put on the robe” at the banquet of the kingdom of heaven was not about God having a strict dress code. Rather it was about those who want all the benefits without having to pay any of the costs.
Because there is, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, a cost to discipleship. There is not a cost to salvation. Salvation is free. It is a gift we receive from Christ by grace, there’s nothing we have to do to receive it and nothing we possible could do to earn it. But when we take that gift, it changes us. We become new people, and that change can be costly. The prophets of Israel paid the cost. Bonhoeffer paid it at the hands of the Nazis, King paid it in Memphis, and in maybe less dramatic ways, we pay it too. Being a disciple of Christ is life-giving, but it is not without cost. The promise is not that we will never suffer, but that our suffering is always followed by life.
And maybe this is my snarky millennial side coming out, but I got to thinking about the state of American Christianity. In mainline churches, it sometimes feels like we are pining for an earlier era. When churches were the social gathering space, when the pews were packed, and confirmation classes were huge. Now bear with me. Many of you got your grounding in faith in that environment, and it is a ground that has stood you well long into the future. Who we are is built on the faith poured into you in that period. But it is also the case that the time we remember was a weird anomaly in church participation. We remember it as being “the way things always were,” because human memory only lasts back a couple of generations at best. It wasn’t the way things always were before that. In the 60s, Trinity was worshipping three-hundred on a Sunday. But in the early 1900s, the congregation that was founded by forty-two charter members was down to eight. The forty of us here today is not the smallest we’ve ever been, we just don’t have anyone around who remembers when we called a pastor to serve eight of us.
This is not unique to Trinity either, let’s be clear. This is basically the story of every mainline congregation in America. In the fifties and sixties, church membership grew exponentially. And sociologists posit communism was the cause of that growth. During the Cold War, when Joseph McCarthy was making a name for himself by accusing anyone and everyone of being a spy for the Russians, Americans, and especially high ranking Americans, flocked to churches to prove loyalty to America and distance from the atheist Communists. This is also when “In God We Trust” started showing up on our money, and when the phrase “under God” entered the pledge of allegiance. Before then, such phrases would have provoked memories of the state churches from which the colonists had originally fled. But in the fifties, Russia replaced the Church of England as the greatest threat to democracy, and our society responded accordingly.
And for many people, it worked. Many of you are a testament to the great faith formation a culture of church-goers can produce. But it didn’t work for everyone. My generation’s lack of church connection can also be traced back to a time when church was mostly about making sure you were seen in the right social circles, to get the right promotions and have the right credentials. Like the parable demonstrated, when you invite everyone to the party, some people show up just for the food.
And I am beginning to believe that this pendulum swing is actually good news for us. While it is tempting to look back at the past and lament, I think this parable should help us look forward with joy to the new future God is calling us into. Because the people who were only coming to the party to gain power, aren’t coming anymore. That was Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees, if you’re only coming to eat the free food, you’re taking up a space at the table. Come and be changed.
And if we look at back at the church’s history we notice a startling trend, and that is that we as the church are not at our best when we are the center of society. Constantine’s Rome, not our best moment. The Crusades, not our best moment. The medieval church, not our best moment. We as the church do our best work from the margins. The early Church under Roman persecution was known for its care for widows, orphans, and the marginalized. Luther was an upstart monk from rural Germany who argued God’s grace was not reserved for those who could afford it. Bonhoeffer’s underground church challenged Hitler and helped Jews escape to safety. The black church under Jim Crow fueled the Civil Rights Movement. We do our best work when we do it from the edges. And maybe, just maybe, that’s what’s happening now. Bishop Satterlee once said maybe it’s not that the church is dying, but that, like a boxer before a fight, it’s cutting excess weight and getting ready to move.
So put on your robes, dear people of God. Don the robe of Christ, and enter into the work. Many are called, but few are chosen, and we know from the promises made in our baptism that we have been chosen. We stand at the edge of a new Reformation, and I cannot wait to see how God, through us, is going to change the world. Amen.
But traditionally Matthean or not, it’s a tough phrase to deal with. Especially as Lutherans, we, well I can’t speak for all of you but I, struggle with the judgmental God this parable seems to portray. It may have something to do with how much I dislike shopping, but I’m not always sure what to make of a Jesus who is so particular about clothing.
But Pastor Nadia Bolz Weber talks about how we tend to read parables as prescriptive, if this then that. But parables are more often descriptive, they describe the kingdom of heaven. So what if this parable isn’t about how Jesus is judging your outfit? What Jesus was just telling us how things are?
This parable is the last in a series of parables Jesus told in response to the Pharisees questioning his authority to teach in the temple. This one, last week’s parable on the wicked tenants, and the one the week before about the two sons, are all meant to build on each other. Jesus told them to the Pharisees after he asked them what they thought about John the Baptist and they refused to take a side. So when we hear this parable, we have to resist the habit we’d developed over the summer of putting on our disciple hat to hear it, instead we have to put on our Pharisee hat. This parable is meant to challenge the parts of us who are insiders, who gain power from our association with Christianity, and who use that power to exclude others.
Dr. Eugene Boring pointed out that Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven not to the king, but to the situation of the king who threw a wedding banquet to which no one came. He kept sending slaves to bring in the guests, but still they refused. And not only did they refuse, but they killed the messengers. Eventually the king got fed up, sent his troops out, and destroyed the cities. So what’s the message here? If the parable is prescriptive, the message seems pretty clear. You better come to the party God is throwing, or God will destroy your city. But what if the parable is not prescriptive? What if, as Pastor Bolz Weber thinks, it is descriptive? What is the Old Testament but a story in which Israel turns away from God, God sends a prophet to call them back, they ignore and/or kill the prophet, and then they get conquered. But even as the prophet is warning them of the danger, the prophet also promises God’s presence with them, and even after they are conquered, the prophet promises God is still with them, and eventually, God leads them back from slavery to freedom. And then the story repeats itself. Like last week’s parable, we once again have two sets of slaves who are allegories of the prophets.
I want to be a little careful here, because I’m not saying that God destroyed the people because they didn’t listen to the prophets. It’s like the story of the man sitting on his roof as the flood waters rose and every time someone offered to help him out, he said, no, God’s going to save me. Eventually he drown, and when he went to heaven he asked God, why didn’t you save me. To which God replied, I tried. Who do you think all those people offering to help were? The history of redemption following the destruction doesn’t line up to be a sign of God’s wrath. But if this parable is descriptive, it is a pretty good summary of the events of the Old Testament.
Then the parable goes on. Because the king still had the problem of not having any guests for his party. So he sent his slaves back out to gather up anyone they could find. And soon the hall was filled with guests, both the good and the bad. But when the king entered the hall, he found a guest who was not wearing a wedding robe. And the king was so enraged by the guest’s failure to live up to the dress code, that he had his attendants bind the man and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Before we get too far into this, let’s notice a few things. First, when a king threw a banquet, he often provided the wedding robes for his guests. Part of the purpose of a wedding banquet was for the groom to prove how wealthy and powerful he was, and what better way to do that than to literally dress all your guests. So while an extreme response, it was not unreasonable for the king to expect the guests to be wearing the clothes he gave to them when they entered.
But second, and more important, in the early church, “putting on the robe” was a metaphor for becoming a follower of Jesus. It was a reference to the white robe that new converts would put on after their baptism. This man’s refusal to “put on the robe” at the banquet of the kingdom of heaven was not about God having a strict dress code. Rather it was about those who want all the benefits without having to pay any of the costs.
Because there is, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, a cost to discipleship. There is not a cost to salvation. Salvation is free. It is a gift we receive from Christ by grace, there’s nothing we have to do to receive it and nothing we possible could do to earn it. But when we take that gift, it changes us. We become new people, and that change can be costly. The prophets of Israel paid the cost. Bonhoeffer paid it at the hands of the Nazis, King paid it in Memphis, and in maybe less dramatic ways, we pay it too. Being a disciple of Christ is life-giving, but it is not without cost. The promise is not that we will never suffer, but that our suffering is always followed by life.
And maybe this is my snarky millennial side coming out, but I got to thinking about the state of American Christianity. In mainline churches, it sometimes feels like we are pining for an earlier era. When churches were the social gathering space, when the pews were packed, and confirmation classes were huge. Now bear with me. Many of you got your grounding in faith in that environment, and it is a ground that has stood you well long into the future. Who we are is built on the faith poured into you in that period. But it is also the case that the time we remember was a weird anomaly in church participation. We remember it as being “the way things always were,” because human memory only lasts back a couple of generations at best. It wasn’t the way things always were before that. In the 60s, Trinity was worshipping three-hundred on a Sunday. But in the early 1900s, the congregation that was founded by forty-two charter members was down to eight. The forty of us here today is not the smallest we’ve ever been, we just don’t have anyone around who remembers when we called a pastor to serve eight of us.
This is not unique to Trinity either, let’s be clear. This is basically the story of every mainline congregation in America. In the fifties and sixties, church membership grew exponentially. And sociologists posit communism was the cause of that growth. During the Cold War, when Joseph McCarthy was making a name for himself by accusing anyone and everyone of being a spy for the Russians, Americans, and especially high ranking Americans, flocked to churches to prove loyalty to America and distance from the atheist Communists. This is also when “In God We Trust” started showing up on our money, and when the phrase “under God” entered the pledge of allegiance. Before then, such phrases would have provoked memories of the state churches from which the colonists had originally fled. But in the fifties, Russia replaced the Church of England as the greatest threat to democracy, and our society responded accordingly.
And for many people, it worked. Many of you are a testament to the great faith formation a culture of church-goers can produce. But it didn’t work for everyone. My generation’s lack of church connection can also be traced back to a time when church was mostly about making sure you were seen in the right social circles, to get the right promotions and have the right credentials. Like the parable demonstrated, when you invite everyone to the party, some people show up just for the food.
And I am beginning to believe that this pendulum swing is actually good news for us. While it is tempting to look back at the past and lament, I think this parable should help us look forward with joy to the new future God is calling us into. Because the people who were only coming to the party to gain power, aren’t coming anymore. That was Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees, if you’re only coming to eat the free food, you’re taking up a space at the table. Come and be changed.
And if we look at back at the church’s history we notice a startling trend, and that is that we as the church are not at our best when we are the center of society. Constantine’s Rome, not our best moment. The Crusades, not our best moment. The medieval church, not our best moment. We as the church do our best work from the margins. The early Church under Roman persecution was known for its care for widows, orphans, and the marginalized. Luther was an upstart monk from rural Germany who argued God’s grace was not reserved for those who could afford it. Bonhoeffer’s underground church challenged Hitler and helped Jews escape to safety. The black church under Jim Crow fueled the Civil Rights Movement. We do our best work when we do it from the edges. And maybe, just maybe, that’s what’s happening now. Bishop Satterlee once said maybe it’s not that the church is dying, but that, like a boxer before a fight, it’s cutting excess weight and getting ready to move.
So put on your robes, dear people of God. Don the robe of Christ, and enter into the work. Many are called, but few are chosen, and we know from the promises made in our baptism that we have been chosen. We stand at the edge of a new Reformation, and I cannot wait to see how God, through us, is going to change the world. Amen.
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Conversation Points on Matthew 22:1-14
Study Format:
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• V. 1 starts “Once more…” indicating this parable has the same audience as the previous two. The three parables form a unit, and to understand this last one it has to be read in context of the first two.
• In the preceding parable, 21:43 introduced the kingship motif. This parable builds on it, and the man in the preceding parable now becomes the king throwing a wedding banquet for his son. The father/son motif is one of the threads that bind all three of these parables together. It should also be noted that the kingdom of heaven is not specifically the king, but the whole situation the king is in.
• The custom behind inviting people to a wedding banquet was not unlike the current custom of a “save-the-date” followed by an actual invitation. The first step was an invitation sent well in advance, which was to be acknowledged and accepted by those invited. The day of the event, a courtesy reminder was sent. In Matthew’s allegorical interpretation, the implied initial invitation was the original covenant between God and Israel. No excuses are given in Matthew’s version of the parable for why the invited guests now refused, but the refusal, especially in concert, might imply rebellion.
• Like the previous parable of the landowner and the tenants, the king was patient and instead of retaliating sent other slaves.
• After the second refusal however, the king became angry and destroyed the people. Dr. Boring points out this is clearly parabolic, as there is no way to make this part realistic. The king could not wait a dinner while he had troops destroy entire cities.
• After the invited and refused guests are destroyed, a third invitation goes out, this time not just for those who had been invited previously, but for all.
• V. 11-13 are a different parable tacked on to the first. Once again realism is sacrificed for theological meaning. In early Christianity, the idea of putting on “new clothes” was a common language of explaining conversion. It was not that some random guy off the street was expected to just be carrying around garments suitable for a wedding, but the theological expectation of being fully clothed in God’s grace.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
1. Read passage aloud. What did you notice in the reading? What words or phrase caught your attention?
2. Read passage aloud a second time. What questions would you ask the text?
3. Read passage aloud a third time. What do you hear God calling you to do or be in response to this text?
Interesting Ideas to Consider:
• V. 1 starts “Once more…” indicating this parable has the same audience as the previous two. The three parables form a unit, and to understand this last one it has to be read in context of the first two.
• In the preceding parable, 21:43 introduced the kingship motif. This parable builds on it, and the man in the preceding parable now becomes the king throwing a wedding banquet for his son. The father/son motif is one of the threads that bind all three of these parables together. It should also be noted that the kingdom of heaven is not specifically the king, but the whole situation the king is in.
• The custom behind inviting people to a wedding banquet was not unlike the current custom of a “save-the-date” followed by an actual invitation. The first step was an invitation sent well in advance, which was to be acknowledged and accepted by those invited. The day of the event, a courtesy reminder was sent. In Matthew’s allegorical interpretation, the implied initial invitation was the original covenant between God and Israel. No excuses are given in Matthew’s version of the parable for why the invited guests now refused, but the refusal, especially in concert, might imply rebellion.
• Like the previous parable of the landowner and the tenants, the king was patient and instead of retaliating sent other slaves.
• After the second refusal however, the king became angry and destroyed the people. Dr. Boring points out this is clearly parabolic, as there is no way to make this part realistic. The king could not wait a dinner while he had troops destroy entire cities.
• After the invited and refused guests are destroyed, a third invitation goes out, this time not just for those who had been invited previously, but for all.
• V. 11-13 are a different parable tacked on to the first. Once again realism is sacrificed for theological meaning. In early Christianity, the idea of putting on “new clothes” was a common language of explaining conversion. It was not that some random guy off the street was expected to just be carrying around garments suitable for a wedding, but the theological expectation of being fully clothed in God’s grace.
Works Sourced:
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume VIII. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Monday, October 2, 2017
Respect (and Question) Authority: A Sermon on Matthew 21:23-32
After four weeks of insider conversations between Jesus and his disciples, our text this morning moves Jesus to a different group of insiders, the chief priests and the elders. For all their faults and foibles, it’s fairly easy for us to place ourselves in the role of the disciples. But if we’re honest with ourselves, as members of an established congregation, we, well, especially me as a religious leader, but you also to a certain extent, need to also place ourselves in the role of the chief priests and the elders. Because we, like them, are insiders in the faith who gain a certain amount of societal status from our association with the majority religion. As a Christian clergyperson, I try to be acutely aware of the clout the collar affords me. This ill-fitting piece of plastic gives me power, whether I want it or not. Sometimes that power is helpful. I joke all the time that hospital regulations do not apply when I wear this. Wherever you are in the hospital, and whatever the restrictions on visitors you might have, when I have this little piece of plastic on I can get to you. It’s like an all-access pass to places normal mortals cannot tread.
Of course, to quote Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. There are all too many stories of this little piece of plastic being used to hurt and abuse people. I have plenty of friends who have been wounded by people wearing this little piece of plastic, and that wound has turned them away from not just the abuser, not just the church even, but God. That is the danger of power.
There is a lot of challenge in Jesus’ words to the chief priests and elders that we heard this morning, a lot of weight and a lot of responsibility. But before we get into that weight, because it’s pretty serious, it feels important to ground the whole thing in this one unchangeable truth: In the parable Jesus told the chief priests and the elders about the father and his two sons, both sons remained sons. Both the son who refused the father initially and then went to the vineyard and the son who said he would go but in the end did not were still sons at the end of the parable. Neither their words nor their actions had any effect on their sonship, on the status of their relationship to the father. From my read of it, this parable has nothing to do with justification, with who is saved, with who is a part of the kingdom of God. What this parable is dealing with is sanctification, the ever-unfolding process of growing more deeply in God’s kingdom. Our salvation, our place in the kingdom, is by grace through Christ’s faith in us. It is a gift and is not of our own doing. We are the sons in this parable, and that is a fact of our humanity, nothing can change that. The challenge in this parable is about how we live out our sonship in the best way possible, and when we are loved as unconditionally as that who can not strive to live most fully.
In the parable, Jesus invited the chief priests and the elders, faithful religious leaders who were firmly “in” in the temple social circles, who followed the rules of their religion, went regularly to the worship, and professed all the “right” things about God, while all the while using these rules to draw tighter and tighter restrictions about who was a part of the faith—restrictions so tight that they were beginning to exclude even Jesus—he invited these consummate insiders, to contrast themselves to tax collectors and prostitutes who professed none of the right things, did not run in the right temple social circles, and were the consummate “outsiders” in the temple community, and yet who were coming to Jesus in droves, repenting and changing their ways of living in response to Jesus’ radical grace. Is it more important, Jesus asked the chief priests and elders, to say all the right things and then act in the wrong ways, or to not say the right things, but live out the kingdom? Can you really mean or believe the things you’re saying if those words are not lived out in actions.
I’m walking a careful theological line here, because one thing our Lutheran doctrine does not hold is the idea of “works righteousness,” that is, that we somehow earn our way to salvation by the life that we lead and the works that we do. That’s why I started this morning by grounding this conversation is the fact that both sons remained sons. The actions performed are not about earning sonship, earning a place in the kingdom. Rather, these actions are an outpouring of this place. Martin Luther wrote in The Freedom of a Christian, “we should devote all our works to the welfare of others, since each has such abundant riches in his faith that all his other works and his whole life are a surplus with which he can by voluntary benevolence serve and do good to his neighbor.”
What prompted the telling of this parable was a question about authority. Specifically, the chief priests and the elders demanding to know who gave Jesus the authority to teach in the temple. They knew the origin of their authority, the credentials they held, and they questioned whether Jesus possessed the same credentials. Earlier in the sermon I talked about power, which is relevant because this concern about authority is really a concern about power. Having the authority means having access to the power that such authority confers. Teaching in the temple gave Jesus’ words a clout and access to channels he had not had as a wandering Galilean preacher. That power was threatening to upset the power held by the chief priests and the elders. It was that threat to their power that would eventually lead to their urging the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus’ death on the cross is the ultimate measure of the danger of challenging those in power, and his subsequent resurrection the mark of God’s triumph over earthly powers.
The chief priests and elders question, and Jesus’ subsequent parable, should cause us to think about our own experience with authority, where we have it and who we grant it to. Authority is both given and earned. As the parable points out, it is both the result of a station and a position that has to be proved and lived. In Martin Luther’s explanation of the fourth commandment to honor ones father and mother, in addition to explaining the command to honor, he also talked extensively about the requirement of parents, and the “nature of their responsibility, how they should treat those whom they have been appointed to rule.” Authority is a two-way street, those under it have an obligation to honor those who have it, and those who have it have an obligation to be deserving of it.
Take, for example, my own authority as your pastor. I have hanging on the wall in my office two documents certifying my authority as a called and ordained minister of the Lutheran Church, a certificate of my ordination and a letter of call to be your pastor. In order for me to have the authority to lead you, to preach, to teach, and to administer the sacraments, in theory I have to have both of those documents. But here’s the funny thing. Before I came to Trinity, I served two years as the pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. And when I was the pastor at St. Paul’s I had neither of those documents. I was not called to be their pastor, I was appointed by the synod. And I was not ordained a pastor, I presided under the authority of the bishop. But they called me pastor, and I did the work of being their pastor, and I felt the responsibility to them of their pastor. So was my authority as their pastor, and the subsequent power I held in that place any more or less because I lacked the required framed documents? I don’t think so. I never asked them, but I think they felt the same. I earned my authority in that role on the basis of my actions among them.
And just as much as I held authority at St. Paul’s despite not having the proper documentation, I could just as easily lose my authority here despite having the proper documentation. You grant me a fair amount of power and respect for my authority, you listen to my preaching, you respect my teaching, you allow me to lead you, and maybe I’m wrong, but I’m going to guess you grant me that honor not because I have two framed documents hanging on the wall in my office, but because of the way I am among you and the relationship that we have developed. If I were to stop leading in a way that was deserving of your honor, if I started using this power in a way that was oppressive or degrading or dangerous, then you would, and rightly should, take the honor and the authority away from me, regardless of how many framed documents I may hang on the wall in my office. Because at the end of the day those documents are just pieces of paper, they are meaningless if I am not living out the actions those documents hold me to. If I were to stop acting in a way that was deserving of the honor you give to your pastor, I think it would not just be your right, but your responsibility even, to protect the authority of the position of pastor by holding the holder of that position accountable to deserving the power of the position.
And I want to push this one step further to say that what is true of religious authorities is also true of worldly ones. Anyone, be they religious, social, or political, who wields power through the authority of that position ought to be subject to the same challenges and questions that Jesus held the chief priests and the elders to. We live in a time where authority is often questioned, and I would say rightly. What this passage from Matthew teaches us is questioning authority is not new. Jesus encouraged the chief priests and the elders to consider the source of their own authority and to reflect on whether or not they were deserving of it, and that encouraging went over as well with the chief priests and the elders as it does with those who question authority in our own time. Yes, we owe respect and honor to those in authority, but those in authority also hold responsibility to be deserving of that authority. And if those in authority are not using their power rightly, but are instead using their power like the chief priests and the elders, to lift themselves up at the expense of others and to close others off from the fullness promised by the kingdom of God, then we have not just the right, but the obligation to question that authority and ultimately even to strip them of such dangerously held power. Because as much as authority is a virtue of position, it also must be earned.
And again, like every other parable from Jesus we’ve talked about recently, this is a careful and delicate balancing act. As people who live in the tenuous already and not yet of the kingdom of God, our relationship to power and authority, both our own and those who wield it over us, must continually be checked and considered. Are we using the authority we have been given in ways that are life-giving for those around us, or are we taking advantage of power we do not deserve? Are we challenging the power and authority above us because they are not using it rightly, or because we have something to gain from the lessening of their power? And because the world is vast and messy and complicated, the answer to those questions is almost always yes. Yes unjust authority needs to be stopped and yes our own desire to seek power through our judgment of others must be checked. This is why we need the church, why we need to be among a community of believers, because we can challenge and check and empower each other. As your pastor I am stretched to be bolder in my prophetic witness and more expansive in my offer of grace because of the ways you challenge and check and accept and empower me. You are stronger in your declaration of justice and more open in your expansive welcome, and it challenges me to be both stronger and more open. And so we dance together in this on-going process of challenge and grace, of calling out and welcoming in. And we do that confident that at the end of the day, no matter what, in the places we earned it and the places we fell far short we are, and forever will be, children of God. Free to screw up, and fail, and try again tomorrow. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Of course, to quote Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility. There are all too many stories of this little piece of plastic being used to hurt and abuse people. I have plenty of friends who have been wounded by people wearing this little piece of plastic, and that wound has turned them away from not just the abuser, not just the church even, but God. That is the danger of power.
There is a lot of challenge in Jesus’ words to the chief priests and elders that we heard this morning, a lot of weight and a lot of responsibility. But before we get into that weight, because it’s pretty serious, it feels important to ground the whole thing in this one unchangeable truth: In the parable Jesus told the chief priests and the elders about the father and his two sons, both sons remained sons. Both the son who refused the father initially and then went to the vineyard and the son who said he would go but in the end did not were still sons at the end of the parable. Neither their words nor their actions had any effect on their sonship, on the status of their relationship to the father. From my read of it, this parable has nothing to do with justification, with who is saved, with who is a part of the kingdom of God. What this parable is dealing with is sanctification, the ever-unfolding process of growing more deeply in God’s kingdom. Our salvation, our place in the kingdom, is by grace through Christ’s faith in us. It is a gift and is not of our own doing. We are the sons in this parable, and that is a fact of our humanity, nothing can change that. The challenge in this parable is about how we live out our sonship in the best way possible, and when we are loved as unconditionally as that who can not strive to live most fully.
In the parable, Jesus invited the chief priests and the elders, faithful religious leaders who were firmly “in” in the temple social circles, who followed the rules of their religion, went regularly to the worship, and professed all the “right” things about God, while all the while using these rules to draw tighter and tighter restrictions about who was a part of the faith—restrictions so tight that they were beginning to exclude even Jesus—he invited these consummate insiders, to contrast themselves to tax collectors and prostitutes who professed none of the right things, did not run in the right temple social circles, and were the consummate “outsiders” in the temple community, and yet who were coming to Jesus in droves, repenting and changing their ways of living in response to Jesus’ radical grace. Is it more important, Jesus asked the chief priests and elders, to say all the right things and then act in the wrong ways, or to not say the right things, but live out the kingdom? Can you really mean or believe the things you’re saying if those words are not lived out in actions.
I’m walking a careful theological line here, because one thing our Lutheran doctrine does not hold is the idea of “works righteousness,” that is, that we somehow earn our way to salvation by the life that we lead and the works that we do. That’s why I started this morning by grounding this conversation is the fact that both sons remained sons. The actions performed are not about earning sonship, earning a place in the kingdom. Rather, these actions are an outpouring of this place. Martin Luther wrote in The Freedom of a Christian, “we should devote all our works to the welfare of others, since each has such abundant riches in his faith that all his other works and his whole life are a surplus with which he can by voluntary benevolence serve and do good to his neighbor.”
What prompted the telling of this parable was a question about authority. Specifically, the chief priests and the elders demanding to know who gave Jesus the authority to teach in the temple. They knew the origin of their authority, the credentials they held, and they questioned whether Jesus possessed the same credentials. Earlier in the sermon I talked about power, which is relevant because this concern about authority is really a concern about power. Having the authority means having access to the power that such authority confers. Teaching in the temple gave Jesus’ words a clout and access to channels he had not had as a wandering Galilean preacher. That power was threatening to upset the power held by the chief priests and the elders. It was that threat to their power that would eventually lead to their urging the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus’ death on the cross is the ultimate measure of the danger of challenging those in power, and his subsequent resurrection the mark of God’s triumph over earthly powers.
The chief priests and elders question, and Jesus’ subsequent parable, should cause us to think about our own experience with authority, where we have it and who we grant it to. Authority is both given and earned. As the parable points out, it is both the result of a station and a position that has to be proved and lived. In Martin Luther’s explanation of the fourth commandment to honor ones father and mother, in addition to explaining the command to honor, he also talked extensively about the requirement of parents, and the “nature of their responsibility, how they should treat those whom they have been appointed to rule.” Authority is a two-way street, those under it have an obligation to honor those who have it, and those who have it have an obligation to be deserving of it.
Take, for example, my own authority as your pastor. I have hanging on the wall in my office two documents certifying my authority as a called and ordained minister of the Lutheran Church, a certificate of my ordination and a letter of call to be your pastor. In order for me to have the authority to lead you, to preach, to teach, and to administer the sacraments, in theory I have to have both of those documents. But here’s the funny thing. Before I came to Trinity, I served two years as the pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. And when I was the pastor at St. Paul’s I had neither of those documents. I was not called to be their pastor, I was appointed by the synod. And I was not ordained a pastor, I presided under the authority of the bishop. But they called me pastor, and I did the work of being their pastor, and I felt the responsibility to them of their pastor. So was my authority as their pastor, and the subsequent power I held in that place any more or less because I lacked the required framed documents? I don’t think so. I never asked them, but I think they felt the same. I earned my authority in that role on the basis of my actions among them.
And just as much as I held authority at St. Paul’s despite not having the proper documentation, I could just as easily lose my authority here despite having the proper documentation. You grant me a fair amount of power and respect for my authority, you listen to my preaching, you respect my teaching, you allow me to lead you, and maybe I’m wrong, but I’m going to guess you grant me that honor not because I have two framed documents hanging on the wall in my office, but because of the way I am among you and the relationship that we have developed. If I were to stop leading in a way that was deserving of your honor, if I started using this power in a way that was oppressive or degrading or dangerous, then you would, and rightly should, take the honor and the authority away from me, regardless of how many framed documents I may hang on the wall in my office. Because at the end of the day those documents are just pieces of paper, they are meaningless if I am not living out the actions those documents hold me to. If I were to stop acting in a way that was deserving of the honor you give to your pastor, I think it would not just be your right, but your responsibility even, to protect the authority of the position of pastor by holding the holder of that position accountable to deserving the power of the position.
And I want to push this one step further to say that what is true of religious authorities is also true of worldly ones. Anyone, be they religious, social, or political, who wields power through the authority of that position ought to be subject to the same challenges and questions that Jesus held the chief priests and the elders to. We live in a time where authority is often questioned, and I would say rightly. What this passage from Matthew teaches us is questioning authority is not new. Jesus encouraged the chief priests and the elders to consider the source of their own authority and to reflect on whether or not they were deserving of it, and that encouraging went over as well with the chief priests and the elders as it does with those who question authority in our own time. Yes, we owe respect and honor to those in authority, but those in authority also hold responsibility to be deserving of that authority. And if those in authority are not using their power rightly, but are instead using their power like the chief priests and the elders, to lift themselves up at the expense of others and to close others off from the fullness promised by the kingdom of God, then we have not just the right, but the obligation to question that authority and ultimately even to strip them of such dangerously held power. Because as much as authority is a virtue of position, it also must be earned.
And again, like every other parable from Jesus we’ve talked about recently, this is a careful and delicate balancing act. As people who live in the tenuous already and not yet of the kingdom of God, our relationship to power and authority, both our own and those who wield it over us, must continually be checked and considered. Are we using the authority we have been given in ways that are life-giving for those around us, or are we taking advantage of power we do not deserve? Are we challenging the power and authority above us because they are not using it rightly, or because we have something to gain from the lessening of their power? And because the world is vast and messy and complicated, the answer to those questions is almost always yes. Yes unjust authority needs to be stopped and yes our own desire to seek power through our judgment of others must be checked. This is why we need the church, why we need to be among a community of believers, because we can challenge and check and empower each other. As your pastor I am stretched to be bolder in my prophetic witness and more expansive in my offer of grace because of the ways you challenge and check and accept and empower me. You are stronger in your declaration of justice and more open in your expansive welcome, and it challenges me to be both stronger and more open. And so we dance together in this on-going process of challenge and grace, of calling out and welcoming in. And we do that confident that at the end of the day, no matter what, in the places we earned it and the places we fell far short we are, and forever will be, children of God. Free to screw up, and fail, and try again tomorrow. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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