The Feast of the Incarnation (Christmas Day) 2014

Rev. Carl M. Saxton, II 

John 1.1-18

This prologue to the Gospel of John is a Christmas story unlike the one we are familiar with.  In our experience the story of Christ’s birth is a story of the Holy Family’s search for safety and comfort.  We know the story of the angel announcing to Mary that she would conceive a child by “the Power of the Most High.”  We know the story of an angel coming to Joseph in a dream and assuring him that the child Mary carried was of God and that he, Joseph, had been entrusted to keep that child safe.  We’ve heard, all our lives, the story of Joseph and Mary returning to Joseph’s hometown in order to be counted for Roman tax purposes.  How the pregnant Mary and Christ’s foster father were forced to take shelter in a stable.  How the angels appeared to shepherds to announce the birth of the Savior, and the coming of the Three gentile Wise Me or Kings.  We know the story of Herod, who terrorized the mothers of Bethlehem in his bid to ensure his position of power and the Holy Family fleeing into Egypt to avoid Herod’s wrath.

Matthew and Luke tell us these details of the life and time surrounding the Holy Family at Christ’s birth.  They give us what we, as men and women, want to know about Jesus’ birth and early days.  Even now, two thousand years later, one of the first things we ask new people when we meet them is, ‘Where do you come from?  Where did you grow up?  Where’s your family from?’  It is a deep-rooted part of our nature that we need to know about origins - our’s and other people’s.  That’s the question Matthew and Luke were answering in their recounting of shepherds, angels, dreams, the stable, and the manger.

John is answering a completely different question.  For John, the real truth of Christ’s birth lie not in the earthly details of Joseph and Mary’s search for a place to sleep and eventual flight into Egypt...the real truth lies in the spiritual reality of who Christ is and where He came from.  John’s Christmas story highlights the heart of the Christmas story: the good news that God's amazing love for us is expressed in the birth of Mary's son. We have come to call this time of year Christmas (Christ’s Mass) but, even today the Church’s name for this most important feast is the Feast of the Incarnation.  It is the mystery of the Incarnation which John expressed in these words: 

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh. The Word, or in Greek the Λόγος (logos), was a term used in the ancient philosophies of Plato and the Stoics. John’s use of the term is probably more influenced by Jewish and Early Christian understandings.  The Jewish author Philo, who was probably a contemporary of John the Evangelist, used Λόγος to refer to the generative or creative force of God.  But the Fourth Gospel says that the Word lived in community with God, and at the same time was God. The Word was eternal, existing at the beginning of time. The Word was the very creative essence of God, through whom all things were made. The Word was the source of light--that is, of goodness and truth--and of life at every level. 

The Word became flesh; what an amazing thing!! If you really think about it...it’s impossible to wrap your mind around.  It’s that ‘not being able to understand the things of God’ that we call a divine mystery.  We call it the Incarnation, but Incarnation is really too limited a term to encapsulate such a mystery. Incarnation means "putting on a body." But, the Word became flesh means the Word took on our entire human nature. The Word became one of us; except for sin, totally human. In that child born in Bethlehem, nothing human was lacking. He had a body just like ours, He had a mind like ours. He had emotions like ours. At birth he was a real baby, totally dependent on his parents. He became a real child, who had to learn how to walk and talk and read and write. He went through puberty, just like we do, and turned from a boy into a man. He learned the trade of carpentry from Joseph and only honed his skills through hard work and practice. Jesus was completely one of us, a human being.

The Word became flesh. Both sides of this statement of one of the central mysteries of our faith are important, and we need to hold tightly to both of them. The Son of God became a human being and lived a human life among other humans. That's the first part of the Christmas story, the part that gets the attention at this time of year, and it’s really important. Sometimes, though, we try to separate God from the hustle and bustle of human life, as if God has nothing to do with the messiness of life as we know it. The Incarnation tells, shows us, proves to us that we can't do that, because God came into our world as one of us, and nothing earthly or human is beyond His experience.

There's also a second part to John’s Christmas story: we have seen God's glory. That's what John tells us. What does John mean by that? Is he talking about some special, unique part of Jesus' life and ministry? I don't think so. I think that the glory of God was revealed in Jesus’ life. His disciples, who knew him best, saw that he was full of grace and truth.

Jesus reflected and radiated the unconditional love of God. He loved the Pharisee and the tax-collector, the Jew and the Samaritan, the lovely and the unlovely, the sinner and the righteous. His love was never a reaction to the love of others; he reached out even to those who hated him. He displayed God's grace. He offered acceptance and salvation to Zaccheus, the outcast tax-collector. He challenged the rich young man to escape the slavery of riches. His lament over Jerusalem, when he cried

Jerusalem, Jerusalem!...How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  [Matthew 23.37-39]

was a plaintive expression of God's love and grace. Even his words to Judas at the moment when Judas betrayed him, ‘Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?’ expressed deep love and concern.

Jesus expressed the absolute faithfulness of God--and faithfulness is central to the Hebrew idea of truth. You could depend on Jesus. You could depend on Jesus to satisfy needs: to feed the hungry, heal the sick, bless the children, cast out demons, raise the dead, break the chains of sin. Jesus was utterly dependable: he reflected the righteousness, justice, wisdom, and truth of God the Father. When the disciples saw Jesus in action, they saw God with a human face.

So in this Christmas season we need to be open to the continued work of God in Jesus Christ. For the Christmas story does not end in Bethlehem. It goes on. It includes the death and resurrection of Jesus. It includes everything that made Jesus the one who would save people from their sins. It includes the fact that Jesus is still alive with God, that Jesus is still active, that Jesus is still reflecting the grace and truth of God to those who are willing to receive it.

We are here today because we believe that God is still working through Jesus Christ. Right? We're here because we believe that Jesus Christ can satisfy the needs in our lives and in our world. Even if you have doubts and questions about Jesus and about Christianity, being here today says that you haven't closed your mind to the possibility that God is still working through Jesus Christ.

God works through Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ works through us. That’s why we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. In the Eucharist Jesus comes to us, Jesus meets with us, Jesus feeds us with his grace. The Eucharist is an extension of the mystery of the Incarnation, of Christ’s coming to us in humble and earthly form. As we receive the consecrated bread and wine we confess that Jesus is alive, that he is still with us, that he makes it possible for us to live as he lived.  When we strive to live as Jesus lived, reflecting the unconditional love and the incredible faithfulness of God, then Christmas will truly continue here in our world and in our lives; and Emmanuel, God with us, becomes our everyday reality. ‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us’ - thanks be to God for the mystery of the Incarnation - the joining of humanity and the grace and truth of God.

The Third Sunday of Advent

Third Sunday of Advent                                                                                       The Rev. Carl M. Saxton

1 Thessalonians 5.16-24; John 1.6-8, 19-28

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

In this season of Advent, as we prepare our hearts, minds and souls for the coming of the Christ child - and the coming of Christ at the end of time - we light successive candles on the Advent wreath.  This, however, is a special Sunday - the Third Sunday of Advent - when we light the rose candle.  Why is one candle not like the others?

Advent is somewhat related to Lent.  It has the underlying message of penitence in its message of expectant waiting for the coming of Christ.  The readings, especially the Gospel readings for the last two weeks, have pointed toward the end of time, and the Collects have the Last Days and repentance for sin as their themes.  In fact, today’s Collect asks the Lord to

Stir up [His] power...and with great might come among us, because we are sorely hindered by our sins...

On the Advent wreath, the three blue candles mark the preparation Christians undergo while awaiting the arrival of Christ on Earth.

This can be a difficult season for us, as liturgical Christians, because as we hear the Lessons, Gospel readings, and Collects call us to examine our relationships with God and one another, and to evaluate our spiritual lives in the light of the future coming of Christ, it seems as if the rest of the world around us is already celebrating the joy of Christmas.  All around us we there is food, parties, shopping, music and lights. In the retail world, Christmas begins right after Halloween and then kicks into overdrive on the day after Thanksgiving. Many people willingly participate in this, barely putting away the leftover turkey before putting up every Christmas decoration they own.- while we try to stay in the expectant and reflective frame of mind to which Advent calls us.  While this calendar is fine for secular society, it has nothing to do with the Child at the heart of the season. We won’t celebrate His birth - the glorious and mysterious Incarnation of God - until Christmas Eve, and all the early bird sales in the world won’t speed that up.

In the old Latin Rite of the Mass this Third Sunday of Advent was known as Gaudete Sunday.  It took its name from the first words of the Introit which come from Philippians 4.4:

Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. -- Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

We light the rose-colored candle to remind us of that Gaudete, that Rejoice! and in some places the priests and deacons wear rose-colored vestments on this Sunday as well.  Why do we need a reminder to rejoice on this Sunday?  Because the happiness that comes from being surrounded by friends and family, and from the full belly of Christmas feasting – the happiness we associate with the season – is not the same thing as Christian joy.

It’s because of the penitential nature of the season that we need the reminder.  Even as we evaluate our spiritual lives, looking for ways in which God is calling us to draw closer to Him, and recognizing our imperfections and failures as we look forward with both awe and anxiety to Christ’s coming, this Sunday calls us to hold onto our Christian joy.  Our joy as Christians doesn’t come from the world around us, it comes from our relationship to God through Jesus Christ.

Rejoice always: this isn’t about wearing a goofy smile through life - like hiding behind a mask from the realities of life, or worse, trying to avoid them altogether. This isn’t some kind of existentialist escapism.  For the Apostle Paul there is a definite reason that you and I are to rejoice always, even living in a world where there is war, violence, cruelty, poverty, and hunger.

We’re to rejoice because in the face of all of that, we know, in Paul's words, "If God be for us, who can be against us?"[1] We’re to rejoice because we know that having been joined to Christ in baptism, we will be joined to him in glory. We’re supposed to rejoice because our names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. We’re supposed to rejoice because, as Paul wrote to the Thessalonians just a few verses earlier than today's lesson, "God has destined us not for wrath, but for salvation."[2] The Day of the Lord is not doomsday, but a day of redemption for us because we belong to God in Jesus Christ.

There is another reason for us to rejoice always: despite the fallen, broken world we live in, we see signs of its redemption, signs of its righteousness around us and inside of us that signal the presence of God's Spirit. The saints continue to reveal holy lives: the Word is proclaimed, the sacraments are celebrated, the homeless are housed, the hungry are fed, acts of mercy take place as Christ shows up anonymously around us. When Paul says "Rejoice always," he is not saying "Cheer up!" or "Get happy!" He is talking about keeping ourselves centered in the deep joy that knows, regardless of how dark life may seem, we are children of light rather than darkness, not because we are enlightened, but because we belong to the light.[3] We endure, not because of our own steadfastness, but because of God's. Rejoice in this always, without ceasing, and in all circumstances; this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

We are to pray without ceasing. This doesn’t mean a life spent on your knees in a chapel or cave – at least not for everyone. On the other hand, time on our knees, whether literally or figuratively, must be a part of the daily rhythm of our lives if we are to remain faithful. In prayer, we are drawn into the intimacy of God's presence and are nurtured by His presence and power.

Paul says, pray, not only at regular times – for him it was three times a day – but at all times "without ceasing." He tells us to live a life in constant dialogue and interaction with God, whether on our knees or seated at our desk, in the chapel or on the bus, as well as on the street, at the computer, the dinner table, in front of the TV or with a newspaper in hand. Such conscious contact with God, faithfully added to our day, actually brings God's power and holiness into our lives. The seventeenth century Carmelite Brother Lawrence famously called it "practicing the presence of God."[4] When our lives are in such constant dialogue with God, all that we see, contemplate and do is held before God, while we are, in turn, strengthened with a divine self-giving that happens inside of us. Here is the real power of prayer--it is our divine lifeline--it sustains, strengthens and empowers us. Prayer links us to life's power source as surely as the cord on any appliance links it to the electricity that comes from the wall socket. Unplugged, it is useless. Pray always, without ceasing, in every circumstance. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Give thanks in all circumstances. Notice what Paul does not say: he does not say give thanks for all circumstances. There are circumstances in life that no one can give thanks for. Not every circumstance that comes to us is of God's making, nor God's will for us. Evil is real and present in our world. Yet, none of that--no circumstance in life--is beyond God's reach and God's power. God's power is such that even the worst evil can be overcome with good, transformed and folded into God's purposes. The ultimate example of this is the cross. Those who wanted to destroy Jesus forgot about the power of God; and so they simply created the opportunity for God to reveal the scope and dimension of His goodness and power. Do not give thanks for every circumstance, but in every circumstance give thanks for the power of God, thanks for the power of the resurrection, thanks that our hope is in God, thanks that what we see is not all that there is. Give thanks always, unceasingly, and in all circumstances. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

The life of holiness to which Christians are called does not necessarily demand from all complete withdrawal from the world, nor does it fling us blindly into life's corruptions and brokenness, to try to fix the world on our own. Instead, God promises that holiness will develop in us as we rejoice, pray and give thanks always, unceasingly, in all circumstances. In this way, the God of peace is making us His own and giving us His peace; the God of holiness is making us holy, sound and fit for Him in body, mind and spirit.We light the rose candle to remind us of the joy we find in our life together in Christ; our joy born of the reality that God became flesh and dwelt among us. The God of hope is holding us in such a way, forming us in such a life, that we may be found blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This, my beloved brothers and sisters, is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

---

[1] Romans 8:31

[2] 1 Thessalonians 5:9

[3] 1 Thessalonians 5:5

[4] of the Resurrection, Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God: the Best Rule of Holy Life, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Pub, 2011).  [Many other editions available]

The Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost                                                               Rev. Carl M. Saxton

Proper 28A                                                                                   1 Thess. 5.1-11; Matthew 25.14-30

The Gospel we just heard is known as the Parable of the Talents.  That word, talent, can be confusing to the American ear.  Its original meaning in the New Testament Greek referred to a measure of weight – and one Bible translation says “bags of gold” rather than talents.  That’s a pretty telling translation, since a talent was equal to what the average laborer could earn in about 15 years.  So, in giving each of these servants one or more talents, the master is entrusting each of them with a small fortune.

The real thrust of this parable, however, is not found in the enormous amounts of cash entrusted to each of the servants, but the common theme of this parable, and both of the preceding parables.  These parables are a large part of what scholars call the Judgment Discourse, where Christ talks about what will happen at the end of time. 

At the end of chapter 24 of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells the tale of the Faithful and Unfaithful Slaves.  The faithful slave, when put in charge of his master’s household, is found at work when the master returns; Jesus says, Blessed is that slave.  The unfaithful slave, discovering that the master is delayed, begins to beat his fellow slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards.  This slave is cut in pieces, and put with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The next parable is that of the Wise and Unwise Bridesmaids.  The unwise bridesmaids go out without oil for their lamps and, forced to go to the dealer and buy more, miss the coming of the bridegroom and are locked out of the feast. 

Then, in today’s parable, the master entrusts his slaves with large sums of money, then, after a long time the master returns to settle accounts.  Each of these parables has the same central idea of delay – both of the masters, that of the faithful and unfaithful slaves; and of the slaves given the talents; and the bridegroom are delayed for a long period of time.

Remember that Matthew was written perhaps more than a generation after the letters of Paul.  Paul wrote in the firm belief that Jesus was returning at any moment, which is why he discouraged marriage and constantly exhorted his readers to keep awake and be sober, because the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, like labor pains come upon a pregnant woman.

Matthew’s community was probably reading these letters of Paul and wondering why Jesus was taking so long, where was this Messiah who was to come in the lifetime of the Apostles but had failed, so far, to show back up 50 to 60 years after His death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven?  And so, Matthew tells these parables about proper behavior for Christians during this long delay.

When I was a teenager, I was – as we called it in the 80s – a latchkey kid.  Both of my parents worked, so I would let myself into my house with a key kept on a chain worn around my neck.  Most days my mother would leave a list of tasks to be done when I had finished my homework.  Many of you may relate to this through your own experience as either a teen or the parent of a teen.  More times than I care to admit, that list of chores – and my homework – would be undone when my parents walked through the door after work.  I would distract myself with television or videogames, and what seemed like plenty of time to get it all done would evaporate.  I failed to use the time given to me wisely.

wants to make sure that his community, and by extension our Christian communities, are aware that we are expected to work for the Kingdom of God during this time of waiting for Christ’s return – that they use their time wisely.  The faithful servant in the first parable is faithful in overseeing his master’s household, we are told, because he give[s] the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time.  He cares for his fellows in the extended absence of his master.  Notice that the slave doesn’t have to figure out a way to buy the food for his fellow slaves – it’s been provided by the master.

Today’s parable takes the expectation a step further.  By his reaction to the slave that simply buried the talent given to him, the master clearly expected more than just the protection of what he had given – he expected that what he gave them would grow.  Matthew doesn’t tell us how the first two slaves managed to invest their master’s money so successfully, because the “how” isn’t the point of the story.  The real driving force of the parable is the contrast between the risk the first two slaves were willing to take and the third slave’s fear.

We all know that there’s nothing worth having that we don’t have to take a risk to get.  I think of the countless YouTube videos that can be found of a guy proposing on the JumboTron of some athletic event.  I can’t help but think to myself, man than is one brave guy!  If she says ‘Yes,’ it’ll be one of the most romantic gestures of their lives in live video 10 times real-life size…if she says ‘No’….nationwide humiliation at the same 10 times real-life size.  But that guy knows that having the chance to spend the rest of his life with the one he loves…it’s worth the risk.

You see, in the building up of the Kingdom of God and in growing in the spiritual life, there is no responsible use of the gifts of God that does not involve risk.  I’ll say it again, there is no responsible use of the gifts of God that does not involve risk.  We know that human growth is impossible unless the boundaries we set ourselves are crossed and we are made vulnerable to rejection, failure, and loss.  I will never learn to speak French until I am willing to be laughed at by people who speak French fluently.  You will never learn to ride a bike without the training wheels unless you're willing to accept the very real possibility that you will fall and get hurt.  Friendship is impossible to build without taking the chance of being snubbed by someone whose goodwill and esteem are desperately longed for.  Lifelong love will remain a dream if you’re not willing to take the chance that he or she might say no.

Very soon we will enter the season of Advent – the Church’s season of waiting and watching.  We wait and watch both for the coming of the Christ child at Christmas and the glorious coming of Christ at the end of time.  So how appropriate is it for us to hear these parables of delay and waiting as we enter this season?

I want to challenge each and every one of you to take time, starting today and all through the coming season of Advent, to look around you at all of the graces that God has given you.  Look at your material blessings and your spiritual blessings.  Give thanks to God for all of those blessings, then ask yourselves: Am I using all that God has given me to help build up the Kingdom of God?  If the answer is no, spend time in prayer asking God what more you can do.  Perhaps God wants you to give more, or to risk reducing your income to spend time serving in a way you have always dreamed, or maybe risk not getting your "to do" list done so that you can spend more time in prayer.  Are you willing to take risks in building up that Kingdom?

Theologian Paul Tillich put it this way:  

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.

What risks will you take for God?

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Proper 24A

Rev. Carl Saxton

The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost                                                           

Proper 24A

1 Thess. 1.1-10; Matthew 22.15-22

You may remember that just three weeks ago we talked about the beginning of this series of encounters that Jesus had with the important men in Temple and Jerusalem society.  A little more than 30 verses ago in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus entered the Temple and was teaching when a group of priests and elders approached Him and asked by what authority he taught; and from whom did he receive that authority – remember?  If you do you’ll also remember that I said the way the Gospel reading ended that day we were led to believe that Jesus refused to give them an answer, but that Jesus would spend the next two and half chapters proving His authority over and over again when confronted with similar questions designed to trap Him.  This is the same day – the saga continues.  Jesus has told them 3 separate parables; each of which highlights the refusal of these leaders to live up to God’s expectations.

Having grown sick of Jesus turning the tables on them, the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said.  So they send their disciples and some Herodians to ask a question specially designed to entrap Him.  First, though, they try to butter Him up, they say: 

Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality.

Then they ask the question:  Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?

Now, Matthew told us back in chapter 12 that the Pharisees had already decided to destroy Jesus, to manipulate events that would lead to His death.  In our reading three weeks ago the “powers that be” had asked Jesus by what authority he taught in an effort to trap Him into saying something blasphemous.  Blasphemy would have led to stoning or some other terrible death, but the plot had failed.  Having failed at luring Him into blasphemy, this group poses a question designed to lure Jesus into committing treason - and they had stacked the deck.

You see, by sending both Pharisees and Herodians they had hoped to force Jesus to slip up.  The Pharisees saw paying taxes to Caesar as sinful, while the Herodians, followers of Herod the Great, did not.  In fact, the Herodians probably benefited from these taxes because of Herod’s relationship with Rome.  Had Jesus simply responded, Of course you should pay your taxes, the Pharisees would have decried Him as a Roman collaborator; while if He had declared it unlawful [meaning against the Torah, the law of God] to pay the census tax, the Herodians would have condemned Him as a rebellious Zealot.

But Jesus, once again, sees the trap!  This time he even calls them on it, he says, Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?  Then to prove their hypocrisy he says, Show me the coin used for the tax.  This is Jesus’ own little trap.

Remember the story of Jesus throwing the money changers out of the Temple?  Well, the reason they were needed in the Temple in the first place was the answer to Jesus’ second question to those trying to entrap Him.  Whose head is this, and whose title?  They knew the denarius, the coin used to pay the tax - worth one day’s wages, had the head of Caesar and Caesar’s title.  There’s the small matter of Jewish law forbidding the making of any “graven image,” which the face of Caesar on the coin would be considered; but the title is far more blasphemous.  Caesar’s title found on the denarius was: TIBERIUS CAESAR, AUGUST SON OF THE DIVINE AUGUSTUS, HIGH PRIEST.  Declaring Augustus, and therefore Tiberius, divine made the title and the coin repugnant to the Jews.  It was forbidden to carry this image and title into the Temple, and here were the very cream of society, those secretly plotting Jesus’ death, with one in their pocket.  Don’t forget, we’re still in the Temple where we began at our Gospel reading three weeks ago!

That little zinger aside, the real central message of this reading is Jesus’ next statement: 

Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.  Or, for those of you who love the King James Version, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

We often hear this particular scripture verse interpreted as the Bible’s teaching on the separation of Church and State; I think that on the surface you could absolutely defend that interpretation.  I also think the real meaning is found much deeper.  

The word that is translated in the New Revised Standard Version as “give to” and in the King James Version as “render unto” can also be translated as “give back” or “return.”1

  This is the sense Jesus seems to be giving.  Having asked whose image is found on the coin Jesus then points out that the coin is already Caesar’s and, therefore, it cannot be unlawful to give back to Caesar what already belongs to Caesar – Jesus 1; Pharisees and Herodians 0.

Matthew’s original readers, mostly new Christians who had grown up steeped in the Jewish traditions, would have caught onto the meaning instantly.  They would have recognized that Jesus’ question about whose image – in Greek whose εἰκὼν (icon) – is found on the coin was pointing back to the creation story of Genesis.

That scripture tells us that:

God created humankind in his image (εἰκόνα),

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them. (Genesis 1.27 NRSV)

If that which bears Caesar’s image, or icon, should be given back to Caesar; how much more should that which bears the “image and likeness”2

 of God be given back to God?  Jesus affirmed the tax while making it all but irrelevant. He implies that, though we do owe the state, there are limits to what we owe. Yet, Jesus places no limits regarding what we owe to God.

This text is often used to talk about stewardship in terms of what you give to the church. And it is about stewardship, but this is no passage on the tithe. Because if giving 10 percent of our income is all we do, we would fall way more than 90 percent shy of the mark. Jesus says that everything you have and everything you are is God’s already.

While this would certainly apply to the money you make, the formula is not that you give 100 percent of your income to God, God knows you need money for the necessities of life. The message is that once you have given God some of the money you earn, don’t feel that you have bought off an obligation. God wants to share in some of your time and energy, so the 100 percent formula relates to your calendar as well as your wallet.

In our culture Christianity has become a sort of family heirloom for many people.  There are large numbers of people who would, if asked, say that they are Christian though they have rarely darkened the door of a church.  These folks probably couldn’t name the four Gospels or tell you much about what Jesus actually said, instead they parrot what they’ve heard from televangelists, or what has been bandied about by friends as they explain why modern men and women should have outgrown the need for God and faith in Jesus Christ.  These people identify as Christian because their families have always been “Christians,” or because, as products of a predominantly Christian culture, they don’t know what else to say.

This is the kind of faith that Jesus points out in the religious leaders of His day.  That’s why he says, “You hypocrites,” to those who are trying to trap Him into speaking treason, when they themselves are committing a religious offense by carrying the blasphemous coin into the Temple.  He wants their faith to reach deep into their lives and into their hearts so that it affects everything that they do.

What God wants is nothing less than to come and live in your heart. The point is that you’ve been made in the image and likeness of God. God loves you. God keeps your picture in the divine wallet and on the heavenly refrigerator. Jesus didn’t care about the tax, his real concern was that we live into the image and likeness of the God who lovingly created us.

Make no mistake - being a follower of Christ asks something of us.  Jesus asks for all that we are and all that we have. We begin to live into the image and likeness of God by conforming our lives to be more like Jesus’ life. Giving back to God through the church does matter, but merely giving money to the government, to this church or anywhere else is only part of the picture. We are made in the image of God - it’s only fitting that that which bears God’s image should be returned to God.  

C.S. Lewis says it best:

Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always has existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons [and daughters]† of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has ... Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else. 3

To live more fully into that image and likeness of God that is in you, give back your heart to God – it’s God’s anyway. When the time comes for communion in just a little while, I encourage everyone to remember that the Eucharist is our communal sacrifice to God. We make an offering, not only of our financial gifts in the collection, but of our hearts, minds, and souls - of all that we are.  At this altar, we can meet Jesus once more every time we worship. Because in answer to the question, “What are the things that are God’s which we are to give back to God?” the answer is, “You.”

1. ἀπόδοτε, verb 2nd person, plural, aorist, imperative, active of ἀποδίδωμι.

2. Genesis 1.26

† - My addition

3. C S. Lewis, Wayne Martindale, and Jerry Root, The Quotable Lewis (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, ©1989), 93.

Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost                                                                                 Rev. Carl Saxton

Proper 21A                                                                                                      Php. 2.1-13; Mt. 21.23-32

This is Jesus’ final time entering the temple before His impending Passion, Death, and Resurrection.  Soon he will face the chief priests and elders as they gather to interrogate and judge Him, but for now they try to trap him with a question: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”  It’s clear in Matthew that “these things” that the chief priests and the elders of the people are so worked up about are Jesus’ teachings, because they approach him “as he was teaching.”  And the way our Gospel reading is ended today we are led to believe that Jesus refuses to give them an answer, but Jesus spends the next two and half chapters proving His authority over and over again when confronted with similar questions designed to trap Him.

But first, Jesus asks them whether the message of John the Baptist came from heaven or from human thinking.  Matthew tells us that the chief priests and elders smell the trap, they say, “If we say from heaven then he will ask why we didn’t believe him; and if we say ‘of human origin’ the crowds will turn on us because they believe John was a prophet.”  So, instead, they say, “We don’t know.”

Too simple, their only possible answers were ‘from heaven’ or ‘of human origins.”  So Jesus tells them a little parable.  A father asks one son to go work in the fields - he says no, but then changes his mind and goes.  The second son says that he will to out into the fields, and then doesn’t.  Which one did what the father asked?  See, they can’t say, “we don’t know” without looking like fools - Jesus has set his own little trap.

This kind of parable, the kind used to point out their own error to those in power, has been used before.  In 2 Samuel the prophet Nathan tells a parable  to King David about a rich man who steals the only little lamb of a poor man to feed an unexpected traveler because he doesn’t want to slaughter one of his own lambs to be wasted on this traveler.  When the King is incensed against the man and says, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die” and declares that the man had no pity, Nathan comes back with, “You are the man!”  Nathan used the parable to show David his sin in taking Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and then having Uriah killed.

That’s what Jesus is doing in this parable.  His accusers respond, of course, “The first,” because the first son is the only one that actually went to work.  Jesus then goes on to point out that many of them went out to hear John preach, but then went away without believing - like the second son; while those who’re considered sinners, the tax collectors and the prostitutes, who through their sins had refused John’s message on its face had, after hearing his message first hand, believed and been baptized.  Even after seeing those conversions, the chief priests and elders still failed to believe!

It’s all about intentions.  You see the priests and elders had gone out to hear John preach intending to hear, but they closed their ears to the truth of John’s message.  The tax collectors and prostitutes had gone out probably intending to mock and heckle John, but their ears had been open and they believed.  The old saying, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions” is talking about this.

How often have we intended to do something good and failed.  How many of us have told someone that we would pray for them, and then gotten too distracted or forgotten and didn’t?  It wasn’t done out of malice, at least I hope it wasn’t - that’s a whole different conversation.  How many have said to themselves, “I want to get involved in some of the good work being done in Jacksonville by my brothers and sisters at St. John’s...but never do?  How many of us have been confused when we see a brother or sister whose faith was once an inspiration to us start to drift away from the community, and their spiritual life die, and we intended to reach out to them - to call or stop by - but never have?  We all have good intentions.  But Jesus says in today’s gospel reading that our intentions don’t really matter - it’s our actions that are rooted in and flow from our relationship with God that really count.

Often, our intentions never come to fruition because we don’t think we can do those kinds of things.  What will I say, who am I?  We forget that we don’t do any of these things ourselves.  Your baptism gave you a permanent connection to God in Christ, like a pipeline of mercy and grace that is always flowing. It is only God’s mercy that makes us members of the Body of Christ.  I know that you’ve heard me say this before, and I’m only saying it again because it is so important!  That pipeline though, it only remains freely flowing if we pour out that mercy.  When we fail to share the grace through reaching out to one another and putting our faith into action, the pipeline gets stopped up, it gets clogged.

Tell me if it isn’t true.  How many times have you known someone who only gives lip-service to their faith, then after a while they seem disinterested, bored, and drift away from the community.  The people around us who have a vibrant and lively faith are the ones who are serving, inside the church and outside the church.  They let that gift of grace and mercy flow through them and then on to others. Like the first son who ended up living his life faithfully; he didn’t just talk about it or just say whatever he needed to say to appease his father.

We, too, are called to live our lives faithfully.  God has given us the gift of life, and the gift of new life in Christ, and we are called to respond.  We are to be good stewards of our lives, spreading the love of God that has been given to us to others.  We’re not perfect, I’m certainly far from it, but God calls us very pointedly through the message and example of Jesus to be different.  Stephen Colbert said once, “Either we’ve got to acknowledge that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition; and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

We have a tendency to think of ourselves as the good son in this parable of the two sons, just as we have a tendency to identify with the prodigal son in his parable; when, in truth, we’re much more like the older son who stomped off in a huff when the father welcomed the prodigal back with open arms.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we’re much more like the son who says he’ll go, just to get dad off our backs, then we are the son who has a change of heart and goes to the vineyard.  The pipeline of grace is open and flowing - we can choose to serve, knowing that the power to do it comes from our relationship with Jesus.  As St. Paul reminded the Philippians, it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Rev. Carl Saxton

The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost                                                       Rom. 12.9-21; Matthew 16.21-28

In today’s Gospel we hear Jesus rebuke Peter and call him Satan.  Huh…just six verses earlier Jesus said, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah; and here we have Him saying, Get behind me, Satan!  Jesus goes on, however, to explain why he calls Peter Satan, he says, You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.  This, I believe, is the overarching message of this reading.  The Lord points out to Peter that he is not seeing things, in particular the Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, through the eyes of faith.  To Peter the suffering and death that Jesus declares he must undergo is and evil thing that must be avoided, especially by the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.  Peter could not see that Jesus’ suffering and death played a part in God’s plan of salvation, he apparently missed the part when Jesus said, and on the third day be raised.  Peter often just doesn’t get it – even after this rebuke it is probably Peter who draws a sword and cuts off the ear of the High Priest’s slave when Jesus is arrested in Gethsemane, is rebuked again, and then denies knowing Jesus three times.  It’s comforting to know that Peter didn’t get it, because sometimes we don’t get it either.

Here is a well-worn phrase that Christians are used to hearing:  “It’s my cross to bear…”  This cliché makes it seem as if the cross that Jesus says needs to be taken up by those who choose to follow Him is some kind of personal suffering bestowed on believers that must be endured, but I don’t think this is what Jesus meant.  Jesus said: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  The cross, for us, has become a symbol of salvation and the love of God in Christ, but it meant only one thing to the people of the Roman occupied land of Israel – death.  It’s death that I think Jesus is communicating when he says that his followers must take up their cross.  I’m certain that Jesus is not calling every believer to a martyr’s death – I think He calls us to a spiritual death, a death of the self.

In our hyper-individualist and consumerist society the idea of death of the self is a hard pill to swallow.  Everything we see and hear tells us that we are sovereign individuals entitled to do what we want, say what we want, and pursue ‘success’ at all costs.  How do we measure success?  He who dies with the most toys wins, right?  Society tells us that success is having a lot of money, a nice house, a fancy car, and all the latest gadgets and toys – but this is setting [our] minds not on divine things but on human things.  We must understand that because of our baptism, our spiritual death and resurrection with Jesus Christ, the idea that we are sovereign individuals is a lie!  It’s really a lie for everyone, but because of our relationship with Jesus the lie should be more obvious to us.  We are all members of the Body of Christ - one Body, not disconnected individuals.

Recognizing this truth is the first step in the spiritual death of the self.  As Dean Kate told us last week, we show that Jesus in Lord by putting God first, making God a priority in our lives; and we do this mainly through our deeds.  We follow Jesus by deny[ing] ourselves and tak[ing] up our cross.  Death of the self – what I want, how I want it, when I want it must be laid aside for first, what God wants for us and for the world, and then our focus must be outward, to the needs of others – those around us and those we have never met.

It is only through such sacrificial love of God and one another that we can live in the way Paul exhorts us to in Romans, to

·         hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good

·         outdo one another in showing honor

·         be patient in suffering

·         extend hospitality to strangers

·         Bless those who persecute you

·         live peaceably with all

·         never avenge yourselves

·         feed and give drink to your enemies

In the Fall of 1963, a young man named Jonathan Myrick Daniels enrolled at Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, expecting to graduate and be ordained in 1966.  In March 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, asked students and others to join him in Selma, Alabama, for a march to the state capital in Montgomery demonstrating support for his civil rights program. News of the request reached the campus of ETS on Monday 8 March, and during Evening Prayer at the chapel, Jon Daniels decided that he ought to go. Later he wrote:

"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour." I had come to Evening Prayer as usual that evening, and as usual I was singing the Magnificat with the special love and reverence I have always felt for Mary's glad song. "He hath showed strength with his arm." As the lovely hymn of the God-bearer continued, I found myself peculiarly alert, suddenly straining toward the decisive, luminous, Spirit-filled "moment" that would, in retrospect, remind me of others--particularly one at Easter three years ago. Then it came. "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things." I knew then that I must go to Selma. The Virgin's song was to grow more and more dear in the weeks ahead.[1]

He and others left on Thursday for Selma, intending to stay only that weekend; but he and a friend missed the bus back, and began to reflect on how an in-and-out visit like theirs looked to those living in Selma, and decided that they must stay longer.

On Friday 13 August Jon and others went to the town of Fort Deposit to join in picketing three local businesses. On Saturday they were arrested and held in the county jail in Hayneville for six days until they were bailed out. After their release on Friday 20 August, four of them undertook to enter a local shop, and were met at the door by a man with a shotgun who told them to leave or be shot. After a brief confrontation, he aimed the gun at a young girl in the party, and Jon pushed her out of the way and took the blast of the shotgun himself. He was killed instantly.  We remember Jonathan Myrick Daniels on August 14^th.

Jonathan Daniels’ story is an extreme example of a follower of Jesus who knew how to take up his cross.  Even if Jon had not died in his pilgrimage to stamp out racial inequality, the simple fact that he gave up his relatively comfortable place at ETS for the hard and dangerous road of the civil rights movement shows that he was able to subjugate his own comfort and desires to follow what he believed was God’s will.

True death to the self means giving up the self-centeredness that comes standard on nearly every model of human being.  It means listening for the call of God and being willing to give up the self to follow that call.  You do it already – you’ve given up a nice sleep-in this morning to be here, worshipping God. Recognize that as a sacrifice you have already been willing to make, and extend that act of self-sacrifice into other realms of your life.  This is the reason why when you fill out your pledge card, the financial gift you make to God should be one that requires you to give up something – recognizing that God is first requires that we deny ourselves.

C.S. Lewis introduces a new character to the Chronicles of Narnia, Eustace Scrubb – the cousin of the story’s protagonists the Pevensie children, who is described as a boy who liked animals, especially beetles, if they were dead and pinned on a card, and who deep down inside him[self]…liked bossing and bullying.  Of whom Lewis wrote, I can’t tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none.[2]  In short, Eustace was a mean, self-centered boy.

After being magically turned into a dragon after falling asleep on a dragon’s treasure horde filled with greedy, dragonish thoughts[3], he is healed by the Great Lion Aslan (who is, spoiler alert if you haven’t read the Chronicles, the Christ figure) by a process of painful peeling away of his dragon skin (sinful nature) and bathed in a pool (baptism).  After his transformation back into his real self, Eustace stopped being such an angry, self-centered boy; so much, in fact, that people began to say how You’d never know him for the same boy: everyone except [his mother], who said he had become very commonplace and tiresome and it must have been the influence of those Pevensie children.[4]

Another aspect of taking up our cross and following Jesus is putting away our concern about how others will see and judge us for living out our new life in Christ.  Forgive someone that has injured you, especially one who has emotionally wounded you, in the sight of most of your friends and acquaintances, and I’ll nearly guarantee that someone in that group will tell you that you’re crazy, but that’s setting the mind on human things, not Divine.  Forgiveness and loving our neighbor mean that we must abandon any concern about human judgment and keep our minds on divine things.  Many people will react to living out of Christianity as a way of life, rather than as something used to fill the blank next to “Religious Affiliation” on forms, just as Eustace’s mother reacted negatively to his change of heart.  Our baptismal vows, however, call us to put our whole trust in Christ’s grace and love, and to promise to obey him as our Lord.

None of this is easy, and there’s no telling where responding to God’s call will lead.  God may call you to heroic faith like Jonathan Myrick Daniels, or to giving up an hour of TV a day to spend in intercessory prayer for the poor, the sick, and the lonely.  Either way, the change is bound to be painful, like Aslan peeling the dragon skin off of Eustace – and some people will call you crazy.  Only remember that we are called to

·         Let [our] love be genuine

·         to love one another with mutual affection

·         not to lag in zeal, but be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord

·         to rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep

·         not to be haughty, but to associate with the lowly

·         to not be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good.

We followers of Christ, the Christ who died for us, are called to set our minds not on human things but on divine things and to deny ourselves and take up our cross.  Put the selfish nature to death and allow Christ who lives in you to shine forth.  Then the promise of Christ will win out, the promise that you will have life, and have it abundantly.

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[1] http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/228.html

[2] C S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia, vol. 5, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), 2.

[3] Ibid., 97.

[4] Ibid., 270-1.