Pentecost XXI: Dangers of Literalism

The story is told of a convert to fundamentalism, whose pastor after services encouraged him to seek "a word from the Lord" by letting his Bible flop open and then reading the first verse that appeared as a magic communication just for him from God.  He excitedly went home and flipped open his Bible, whereupon he read, "Judas went out and hanged himself."  A bit confused, he tried it a second time.  That verse was, "Go and do likewise."  Now distressed, he tried for a third word only to read, "What you must do, do quickly." 

How we use sacred Scripture can lead us to life and freedom or to the oppression that accompanies superficial study.  Unthinking engagement of the Bible leads us from the sublime to the ridiculous, pointing towards legalistic fundamentalism.  It is useful to remember that lectio divina and other study options are ancient; literalism crept in with the Continental Reformation which hung its hat on Scripture, each denomination defining itself by a laundry list of doctrines tied to bible verses badly parsed and often completely out of context.  We Anglicans were spared that.

Years ago a young lady who was a member of Saint Matthew's stopped attending Mass and neither returned my phone calls nor responded to notes I sent by mail.  A few months later, she appeared suddenly at my office door.  As it turns out. another member had angered her and, instead of letting me know, she had stormed out, started attending a fundamentalist church, and had returned only to question me and tell me why we were wrong about everything.  She had not come to talk, let alone to learn, but only to attack.  Her new church had formed her, not into a Christian, but a Pharisee.

In today's gospel reading [Matthew 22:34-46], Jesus, who has already signed his death warrant by entering Jerusalem while acting out a messianic claim, is still being beleaguered by Pharisees.  His detractors still want to make him look the fool.  This time they ask him to rank the Commandments of the Law, showing which might be greatest.  That would be a gargantuan task, sorting our 248 positive commandments and 365 negative ones, 613 together.  Instead, Jesus sums up the Law by quoting Deuteronomy and Leviticus, about loving God and neighbour.  But pay close attention! In quoting the former, recited every day by faithful Jews in the sh'ma, Jesus says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind."  Jesus changed the final word from 'might' to 'mind,' telling the rigid and legalistic Pharisees to start reading Scripture in an intelligent fashion. And intelligent engagement of the Bible is a hallmark of Episcopalians, I am pleased to say.

In speaking of love for God and others in this way, Jesus is also reminding the Pharisees and us not to get bogged down in rigid interpretations and legalism but get to the bottom line of Christian life.  Jesus communicates that his way of torqued-up Torah, not playing games with proof-texting books, consists of the way of life we must lead.  What does that look like?  Let me answer that question, and close, with quotes from three early observers of how actual Christians behave. It's not about doctrine.

Julian the Apostate. Roman Emperor from 361 to 363), said, "The godless Galileans feed not only their poor, but ours!"  Tertullian (160-225) wrote that Christians "support the poor, pay for burials, take in orphans, care for the elderly and home-bound, serve the shipwrecked and victims of epidemic, and they send money to the banished."   Even earlier, the philosopher Aristides (125) reported that Christians "bring in strangers like they were brothers and sisters; provide for the needs of imprisoned and oppressed people; and for the poor and needy they will fast 2 or 3 days to give food."

Pentecost XX: God v Empire

Today's gospel story is one of the better known among Christians, the encounter between Jesus and his detractors, Pharisees and Herodians.  Jesus accuses them, quite rightly, of hypocrisy.  That term comes from the Greek for wearing a mask.  A hypocrite is  a person who masks the true self in favour of an illusion one wants to project.  What you see is not what you get.  The Pharisees and the fellow-travellers in that time played the role of men who learned from God, but in reality they pushed a rigid puritanical view of God and Scripture, not unlike today's fundamentalist Christians. They talked a lot but they did not learn; they heard a lot but they didn't listen.  Jesus attacks their fundamentalism and easy answers, and they hate him for it.

In today's scene (found in Matthew 22: 15-22) they first highly compliment Jesus for his commitment to truth and impartiality, as if they were fans, then they hit him with another one of those catch-22 questions that are impossible to answer.  The question: Is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor?  If Jesus says yes, he sides with the hostile occupier of Jewish land and will lose his audience.  If he says no, the Pharisees will whistle for a cop, Jesus will get cuffed and stuffed, and he won't be out loose preaching anymore.

Before going on with the story, let me insert one relevant fact.  There were two kinds of money then in circulation in Palestine:  the regular coins bearing the effigy and title of Caesar, as well as special coins for observant Jews, coins which did not bear any graven image of a person, let alone Caesar Tiberias who claimed to be God.  For an observant Jew to touch or spend a regular Roman coin would be a fundamental violation of Judaism by using of a graven image.

In reply to the question from the religious establishment, Jesus tells them to give him a coin.  The coin he is given is the regular Roman coin.  Bingo:  Jesus' enemies have just demonstrated that they are not observant Jews, they use the profane money!   And we should not be surprised, because everything that coin stands for -- imperialism, militarism, wealth, power and influence -- are values the Pharisees and cronies accomodate, but they are not God's values -- equality, peace, justice, fair sharing, and service.  Jesus calls us to action in building the Kingdom of God.  The detractors are all about promoting false values.

Jesus looks at the hated coin, asks whose image it is, and is told it is the image of the Emperor.  Then, Jesus wins the day, saying this thing must belong to the Emperor, so give it back to him!

There are lessons here for us.  Mostly simply, it is ok to pay taxes.  Abraham Lincoln said that government is needed to do for the People what they cannot do for themselves, or not so well.  Examples would be social security and medicare, which are now being threatened.  The more important lesson can be derived from the Pharisees' slip-up with the coin.  The values of the Roman Empire are stamped on the hearts of the collaborators as surely as the image of the Emperor is stamped on the coin they use.  We might ask ourselves today whether those same false values are stamped into our hearts as citizens of the American Empire when instead our task as Christians is not to "go along to get along" like Pharisees but to be more and more conformed to the image of Jesus who show us the human face of God and refuses to compromise with the world's false values.

Pentecost XIX: A Different Peace

On Sunday we talked about the "peace that passes all understanding" which we invoke at the last blessing in most Masses.  The source of the expression is a statement attributed to Jesus in John's Gospel in which he tells his disciples:  I leave my peace with you.  I give you my peace.  It is not like the peace which the world gives, so you don't have to be anxious or afraid. 

The peace that the world gives is merely an absence of conflict.  The peace conveyed by Jesus allows the Christian to be at peace even in the midst of conflict.  Christ's peace is deeper, permeating heart and mind/  It cannot be earned, only accepted as gift to those who live their lives in the Spirit of God as revealed in Jesus.  If you have it, you know what I mean; if you don't, you won't have a clue.

By the world's standards, the Las Vegas Shooter had it all.  He was a wealthy entrepreneur with almost unlimited funds for the enjoyment of life, sex without commitment from a "friend with benefits," no political or philosophical bent, no involvement with charitable organizations, no religion to bog him down.  What more could a devoutly committed capitalist ask for?  Yet, he obviously lacked one thing that wealth, power, and disengagement cannot bring, personal peace.  So, having gone  from one unsatisfying "high" to the next, and with nothing left to live for, he committed a massacre -- killing fifty-nine innocent people, wounding almost five hundred others -- for one last exhilarating experience.

No peace.  In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus introduces us to the kind of life that brings us his peace.  He presents six antitheses, six contrasts between Jewish conventional wisdom and the torqued-up Torah that he would demand of his followers.  Important contrasts: you were told not to kill, I tell you not to hate; you were told not to commit adultery, I tell you not to lust.  In the fifth antithesis, Jesus talks about who is a neighbour.  You were told love your friends, hate your enemies (there is no such biblical injunction), I tell you love your enemies, pray for your persecutors.  How intensely and irrationally radical is this gospel of Jesus!   Yet only that kind of life brings the peace we crave.

Saint Paul tells us how to get into the mental state that will set us in that right direction.  He lumps into one sentence thanksgiving and joy, prayer, and peace.  He lets us know that an attitude of gratitude for all our blessings leads to joy, and turning our lives over to God as people of prayer brings us peace.  The four "gifts of the Spirit" reflect a spiritual life that is healthy and vital:  the blueprint for the peace that passes all understanding.

Pentecost XVIII: The Vineyard

Last Sunday's text [Mt. 21: 33-46] is the last in a series of reflections on the topic of the Vineyard, which was the principal biblical metaphor for the Jewish People.  In a nutshell, the vintner, God, plants his own vineyard in the Promised Land, walls it in, builds a guard tower, and lovingly plants his crop in expectation of a wonderful harvest.  Wanting a yield of justice God instead gets bloodshed; in the place of justice he gets complaints.  In response God adopts tough love:  he leaves his beloved children to the consequences of their choices.  Petty neighbouring powers begin to pick off pieces of the vineyard, and finally the wild boar, the King of Babylon, comes and takes the people into exile in what is now Iraq for some seventy years.

Jesus here retells the familiar story but adds his own death as if it were a past occurrence.  That might seem strange until one realizes that Matthew's gospel is composed more than fifty years after the earthly ministry of Jesus.  We are reading gospel, not history: we have the expanded version courtesy of the Matthaean community.  Having received the "big picture," some anti-Semites try to exploit it into a blanket condemnation of Jews, but read carefully:  Jesus is addressing the religious leaders of his time who were in collusion with the political leaders who executed him.  The establishment had begun to treat the vineyard as their personal property to be used to expand their own wealth, power, and influence.  They forgot who the true Owner was and what their true role was supposed to be.

After the exile prophets rose up to speak truth to power.   Kings and priests on one side pitted against the prophetic community on the other.  What do you think happened?   Amos was banned from the Temple; Isaiah was sawn in half; Jeremiah was dumped into a pit and stoned to death.  Naturally, Jesus would be executed.  And Martin Luther King, Jr., and a myriad of martyrs over time.

The first commandment iterates God's claim to be Number One in our lives (hence the importance of stewardship,with God first in our time, talent, and treasure).  So worship and life are inseparable.  As the author of First John reminds us, you cannot claim to love the God whom you have not seen when you don't love the brother or sister you can see.  God seeks faithful leaders and faithful people, and settles for no less.

Saint Thomas of Hereford

The Saint-du-jour was a person born in 1218 to great wealth.  Scion of a fabulously rich Norman family, Thomas and his siblings were placed under the control of the Bishop of Winchester for purposes of education.. Thomas (and brother Hugh) were sent to Paris for a first-class education as well as an opulent lifestyle in those years.  After graduation, Thomas was ordained a priest, read law at Orleans, and became a canon lawyer.  He then returned to England and taught at Oxford.  Very soon he was made chancellor there and, in that role, was remembered as a strict disciplinarian, a friend of poor students, and one who cracked down on weapons on campus. 

Soon he had progressed to being Chancellor of All England.  Later he returned to Paris for a time, and then reclaimed the chancellorship of Oxford.  In 1275, Thomas was elected Bishop of Hereford in western England.. He was an exemplary prelate.  As bishop he instituted personal austerity, even wearing a hair shirt; became a zealous reforming bishop; and dutifully visited parishes throughout his turf to administer Confirmation.   He also was a strong defender of the rights of his Church.

A redhead with temper to match, Thomas strenuously objected to the officious meddling of the new  Archbishop of Canterbury, John Pecham, in matters of wills and marriages in his diocese, cases which should have been laid in Hereford courts.  The archbishop responded by excommunicating Thomas.

In 1282, Thomas visited the Pope at the pontiff's court in Orvieto, Italy, and Thomas died while there.  His body was translated to Winchester, where his shrine soon became the most visited pilgrimage site in the west of England.   Thomas has the distinction of being the only Saint of the western Church who was excommunicated at the time of death!

Lessons for us:  learn to live simply, do what you do as well as you possibly can, love God and the Church.

Pentecost XVII: Double Header

Today is the both a Sunday in Pentecosttide, but also the Sunday in the octave of Saint Matthew, our patron.  So let us do justice to both the pericopes of today and the Matthaean story.

Jesus gets into it with religious authorities because he is not ordained or otherwise authorized to practise the Rabbinate.  He uses the clever scheme we hear in the gospel [Mt. 21: 23-32] to trap his antagonists.  The ploy he uses is on a par with the old canard, "Do you still beat your wife?"  There can be no good answer.  He asks whether John Baptiser's ministry was authorized by God.   If they say yes, then they have no excuse to reject Jesus' authority.  If they say no, the crowd -- who accept the authority of John -- will stone them.  So they simply say that they don't know. Jesus then says he accordingly has no obligation to answer their query.   Jesus 1, Phony Religion 0.

Then Jesus goes on to illustrate the real point of the exchange.  A father asks a child to get to work.  The child agrees but than does not go to work.  The other child demurs but then goes to work after all.  Point:  the only thing that matters is what you do in response to God's call.  You can sign many "faith statements" about accepting Jesus as your personal Lord, but unless you act on it, it does no one any good.  In fact, elsewhere Jesus tells us that acknowledging him as Lord will not get us into the Kingdom, only doing God's will, doing right, can do so.  [viz. Mt. 7: 21-22]

To put a sharper edge on his point, Jesus goes on to say that hookers and tax agents are taking action in the light of God's call and, thus, entering the Kingdom ahead of these pretentiously pious clerics. That must have stung the professional religionists who specialized in judging and excluding people they considered sinners.  Jesus, in fact, had a preferential option for the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed.

The Cross turns the world upside down,  acting out the story of a Deity who takes on the Dark Side unconditionally, exposing the false values of the world and its systems of domination, and lifting the lowly.  It is the drama of  God's calling all people of good will into a new kind of community, a new way of living, keeping always before our eyes the vision of the Kingdom of God, a world of peace and justice.  There are no natural-born Christians, only people who have chosen to say yes or no to the Good News of what our lives and our world could be. 

Pentecost XVI : Fidelity, Equality, Solidarity

The very early Church was simply radical.  Following the teachings and example of Jesus, those pioneers in faith established congregations which practised a primitive form of communism, from each according to his ability to each according to his need.  Property was held in common and distributed according to the needs of all within the community  were met.  Moreover, following our Saviour's  strict pacifism those early congregations did not admit military personnel to membership: soldiers applying to be Christian were required to renounce their military commission prior to being baptised and baptised members were excommunicated if they joined the military. 

Everything changed with the growing influence of the Roman Empire and its powerful culture.  Particularly, the Church wanted to be allowed to practise in peace and so became very solicitous of the imperial favour.  After a time, the Church that practised democratic communism became the main rooting section for unbridled capitalism.  The Church that excluded active military became chief cheerleader for imperialism and war.

So the first quality of the first Christians was practical fidelity to the actual teachings of the Master.
Second came the quality of equality.  As today's gospel [Mt/ 20:1-6] reminds us, workers coming into God's Kingdom at all hours of the day share equally in the Eternal Life into which we enter through baptism into God's Catholic Church.  There is to be no judgement of others, no talk of relative worth amongst the members.  Like the generous owner in our story, God does not recognize 'worth.'  God confers it. 

The third quality we inherit from those early faithful is solidarity. When we live into God's free grace and practise unconditional love of God and neighbour, we are on a journey with all the saints -- past, present, and to come.  There is no seniority in the Kingdom, no second-class citizens of the City of God.  That doesn't mean we all have the same vocation, but it does mean that everyone counts and is expected to fulfill the personal call, whether to ordained ministry, to the religious life, or to serve in and out of the congregation as a lay Christian, true in word and deed.  We are in this together, equally loved by God, equally charged with God's mission.