Reformed & Always Reforming

Ordinary 31A – sermon based upon Micah 3:5-12 and Matthew 23:1-12

Good morning.  It is good to be with you today.  I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.  It’s hard not to. You’ve become so dear to me that you stay close to my heart.  And I note that for two reasons.  One: I believe we should all know when we’ve been valued and loved and I love and value you.  And Two: It relates to the ultimate point of today’s sermon.  That if we are living the love of God, then meaningful relationships, God inspired changes, and love-filled growth become a way of life.

Now you may be asking how I got that conclusion from two biblical passages about leaders who abuse their power.  Well, let’s start down the trail and I promise that’s where we end.
See, today is Reformation Sunday and that’s a kind of interesting day in the church because we get to remember the past, honor change, and look to see how we’re doing today.  A quick history lesson is that around the 16th and 17th centuries the church leadership, at the time primarily Roman Catholic, had become overrun with leaders who were everything that today’s scripture in Micah and Mathew say not to be. 

They waged war against the most oppressed.  They took bribes and acted with great injustice with their power, land, and money.  They told people to follow God’s law but did as they pleased.  They put heavy burdens and cast harsh judgment upon people, displaying no concept of mercy and compassion.  They did religious activities for the purpose of being seen and honored personally.  To say that many in religious power were corrupt would be an understatement.

For example, the church would rent out its farm land at unfair prices, control what could be grown, and take more than a fair share while leaving the families that worked the farm starving.  And what’s worse, some priests would then tell families that their loved ones were spiritually condemned to hell for not giving even more to the church.  For sure the church has always had people who abused power but this was just a horrible time in the history of religion! 

So, an uprising of faithful people began and they started in separate places and pockets of just a few.  But as the movement grew and communities caught wind of the change the Spirit was blowing in and around Europe, this movement grew into what we call the Protestant Reformation.

The Protestant Reformation brought with it some key changes and some key ideas.  Part of is was a call to return to what today’s scripture says about not being in leadership roles over and above one another.  We are to be in servant roles with each other. I mean that when the bible says don’t be called a Rabbi it doesn’t mean that we are not to have specialized callings.  But it does for sure mean that no calling stands over another.  Those religious leaders that had taken advantage of others would have and could have never done that if they started from a place of knowing that they are but mere servants in the broader, more beautiful body of Christ.

Another idea of the reformation was to recognize that God’s work is alive and well and still being revealed to us.  Just as Micah proclaims that he has power and Spirit and justice and might because he possessed a living faith, we too are called to live with the movement and reflect the ongoing revelation of God in the world.

John Calvin believed that the we must have the presence of the Holy Spirit in order to approach the biblical Word of God because it is with the help of the Spirit that the Word becomes alive in our hearts and lives.  He also reminds us that Jesus Christ is the Word of God and that we live and move and thrive in this ever morphing body… full of truth in this moment and always revealing more.

From Luther and Calvin and others, some important pieces of doctrine immerged that reflected this call back to a more genuine faith.  If it is that we are servants together and that God is working in and amongst us then we must be both redeemed and still being further redeemed, meaning that God’s work is both sufficient in us and that we are called to be more.

Similarly, the near mantra of the Reformation emerged.  In Latin it was said, “Ecclesia semper reformanda est” (Latin for "the church must always be reforming") or semper reformanda, "always reforming.”  It’s not enough that we as individual people of faith grow and change.  The church, both as an institution and as a body of believers, must grow and change.  Complacency and denial of the Spirit’s guiding presence is what had brought the church to the problems it was having at the time.

So here was this uprising and it was at times violent, at times spirit filled debate, and at times exciting renewal.  It was not just about ideas and doctrine.  It was about the lived life of faith.  And while we know that the Protestant Church rose out of this movement, we should also recognize that several other meaningful changes happened in other groups of Christians as well.  The Catholic church did get the message and made some changes.  The Anabaptists, Anglicans, Puritans, and others rose out of the movement.  What could defiantly be said is that this was a time where people were in tune with the call of the Holy Spirit to not be complacent and to be open to where God led them.

So when I look back at that time, I find myself asking what was really going on in people’s lives.  What did the average day in a Christian’s life look like?  And this is where I come to the conclusion that I shared with you earlier. 

See, everyday people were building churches… not necessarily grand cathedrals but just modest churches.  They were connecting with people they would have never come in contact with before.  The walls between pastor and congregation were redefined with servant leadership in mind.  People were reading the bible in their own language for the first time in their lives.  It was amazing!

What were my words earlier?  I said that if we are living the love of God, then meaningful relationships, God inspired changes, and love-filled growth become a way of life.  And that’s what that time looked like in the everyday lives of people.  And it’s’ also the history of the reformation and of the Presbyterian Church.  When we think we’ve got it all figured out, the Holy Spirit comes and reminds us that we are called to deeper relationships, other forms of faithful witness, and growth that reflects that love of God.  We are reformed and always reforming.  Both sanctified through God’s grace and always becoming more in the life of God’s ongoing revelation.

Do you like history?  I do.  And I’m especially fond of that history.  It’s the story of us.  And I don’t just mean this church.  I mean it’s the story of our lives.  If we are complacent and don’t listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit we fall into corrupt decay. 

Look at the global economic crisis of today.  How did that happen?  Well, it was too many political and financial leaders were abusing their power and acting unjustly.  Meanwhile, everyday folks extended unearned trust and didn’t question what was going on.  And just like Micah said, it laid to waste our land… or economy in this case.

But this isn’t just paralleled in global issues.  The Reformation is also mirrored in our private lives.  Sometimes we think we are content with our lives.  We don’t want to change.  Yes, there are some things going on like an old hurt or perhaps a relationship that is causing pain but we’d rather ignore it than do something about it.  And over time, it erodes and damages our self and ability to love even more.

You see, the Christian life is one that demands that we honor the holiness of God’s gifts in the present but also live in openness to the Spirit and where it is leading.  Reformed and always reforming.  The global economic crisis would have never happened if people had been living, as I suggested before, the love of God whereby meaningful relationships, God inspired changes, and love-filled growth become a way of life.  And the decay and crumble of our lives would not happen either if we were living this way.

Now, a word of caution… this is a “we” thing.  I’m not saying that if someone has struggles that it is their fault for not being faithful enough.  Just as Micah and Matthew both reinforced, we are in community, bound together.  My struggles represent my difficulties but my struggles equally represent the failure on the part of others to respond and support me in healing relationships.

For example, the person mired in grief or bound by a history of abuse defiantly has a responsibility to reach toward and receive the love and healing of God.  But we each also have a responsibility to reach back to them and do the same whereby meaningful relationships, God inspired changes, and love-filled growth are reflected in our way of life. 

And this is where we find ourselves today.  Economically, we are in a very anxiety and fear filled time.  The church, both locally and universally, is also having painful struggles that represent the push and pull between being reformed and continuing our work of reforming.  Our lives are places where injustice, pain, complacency, and fear gain too much power over us and abuse us.  It would be easy to feel like this is a pretty dark place.

But there is another motto of the Reformation that applies here.  In Latin it is “Post Tenebras Lux” which translated is “After darkness, light.”  At the dawn of the Reformation, people were nearly hopeless.  They were being crushed by the decay.  But light does come and God is always near.  History would tell us this was the end of the dark ages and beginning of the Reformation.  But we know it was simply being open to the Holy Spirit once again, just like Micah and Matthew call us to today.

Sisters and brothers, our calling is to embrace the love of God and the Holy in the present… to be reformed.  Our calling is also to let that love hold and open us to the Spirit who guides us into ever more meaningful relationships, God inspired changes, and love-filled growth that becomes a way of life… to be always reforming.  We need not fear this path because we are God’s and we are One in the Body of Christ.  Amen.

Building The Kingdom

Ordinary 27A – Sermon based upon Psalm 19 and Matthew 21:33-46

Good morning.  It’s good to be with you on this World Communion Sunday.  It’s a special day when we pause to recognize in gratitude all the different peoples and cultures in which Christianity and the fellowship of the table thrive.  So you might be wondering what today’s scripture message does to uphold that notion because on the surface, it just doesn’t seem to fit.

I mean here we have this story of gang like violence where the workers of a vineyard scheme against the owner, selfishly claim their own superiority, and even brutally kill the owner’s servants and son.  So what is up with this passage that it shows up in the lectionary on World Communion Sunday? 

This passage is one of those parables that stands out from Jesus’ usual teaching parables.  This parable does not use story telling to reveal something of the nature of God, as do so many others parables. One of the reasons is that rather than being aimed at the every day folks of faith, this one is aimed at the religious leaders.  So this parable that seems to have been misnamed “the parable of the wicked tenants" really should be something else. The tenants, of course, play a major role, because Jesus is pointing to the way the Pharisees have mistaken their leadership over Israel for outright ownership of Israel.  But the real focus of the parable is to clarify who Jesus is.

Now when I started writing this sermon, I thought I’d spend a lot of time talking about the history of what all the symbols mean and what it’s getting at but I’m going to do something else instead.  So, I’m going to give as quick an overview of the historical and symbolic significance and meaning as I can.  And then I’m going to move forward to something more practical.  But if you feel like you missed out on some of the nitty gritty of deciphering this passage, just ask me later and we can discuss it for hours.

So we have this cast of characters.  The tenants represent the religious leaders who are more concerned with their own wealth and status.  They want to “inherit” is rightfully Jesus’.  They are responsible for pointing Israel to God, yet they have instead pointed her to themselves. The indictment, then, is not against the people Israel per se, or even against the temple "institution," but rather against God's appointed leaders.  The slaves symbolize prophets sent by God to call the leaders back to God’s purposes.  The son represents Jesus, the son of God.  And the owner represents God. 

Well, the tenants kill the slaves and the son in an attempt to claim the inheritance from the owner.  But then the owner comes and restores the son that was previously cast off… killed.  And all of this points to how amazing the works of God are.

Who is Jesus according to this parable? He is the Son who has come to reclaim what rightfully belongs to his Father. He is the Son whose mission is violently rejected by the Father's own tenants. He is the Son whose rejection is vindicated by the Father. And he is the Son whose vindication prompts the final judgment of the unfaithful tenants.

In coming to reclaim what rightly belongs to his Father, the Son sets out to restore the world to its divinely created order. One need only look at Jesus' ministry to see what this looks like: the sick are made well, sinners are restored, and God is praised.  In short, Jesus brings wholeness to a broken world, providing glimpses into what he elsewhere calls "the kingdom of heaven."

So that is the somewhat quick overview of this passage.  But there’s a part I want to zero in on.  Verse 40 reads, “Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?"

That’s really the million-dollar question, isn’t it? What will he do to them? What will the one in charge do to those who have blatantly, flagrantly disobeyed and violated their roles?  They’ve even committed murder.

Well, listeners said the owner should kill them all and start fresh.  But let’s go back to what all this symbolizes.  Is that what God did to the Jewish leaders?  Is that what God does to religious leaders today that go awry?  Is that how God deals with any of us in our failings? 

No it is not.  Jesus may have been pointing to himself as the savior but he was also pointing to a God that never gives up on God’s people.  This parable tells us that the son who has been killed… you know, Jesus will be restored and become the cornerstone, holding all of this together. 

God’s work is not that of smiting and smacking us down when we fail.  God’s work is that of restoring and reconciling us.  God raised up his son and restored him for the goodness and healing of creation. 

This stands in stark contrast to persons of faith in that time and still today who act with self serving intentions.  They call for judgment of those around them.  They use the failings of others to feel superior while ignoring the log in their own eye. They see control and conquest rather than reconciliation and healing.

But before we get too carried away with all these “they” do this and “they” do that’s, we need to be humble enough to see that sometimes we all fall into that kind of judgmental thinking.  We get focused on our particular ways of doing things and turn those into our standards instead of using God’s measuring stick of love and mercy.

And I think that is the real point of this parable today.  Jesus was talking to the Pharisees but if Jesus told us this parable today, and we replied with “kill the tenants,” I hope we would be able to see that the message of Jesus being a conduit for restoring the kingdom through peaceful means instead of vengeful ones would sink into our hearts and minds.  I hope we could see God’s interest in making creation whole rather than clear cutting the land.  And I hope we can receive the healing of that part in us that calls for retaliation so that we can be co-creators with God in building the Kingdom.

So here we are.  It’s World Communion Sunday where we celebrate the way God has reached out with wide arms to the world.  We collect the Peacemaking offering that goes to programs both near and far that work to be beacons of God’s peace, love, and mercy.  And even if those things weren’t going on, we ourselves need a good bit of God’s love and mercy rather than the judgment and shame we so often heap upon ourselves and one another. 

Sisters and brothers, we’ve gone all the way from a bizarre parable of gang like violence to God’s message that healing comes through the peaceful and loving reconciliation through Christ.  That’s one wild journey.  But I think it mirrors our own experience.  We have no trouble imaging the violence but we have trouble making the leap to peaceful healing.  But that is the point. We don’t have to make the jump.  Christ made the leap for us.  And thanks be to God for that. 

Our charge is to be humble and open to God’s work of healing and reconciliation. May we be every willing to be part of the Kingdom God is building with us.  Amen.