Charlotte
Collins Reed
Christ
Church Episcopal
August
7, 2016
14 Proper C
A couple of weeks ago, the Christ
Church vestry had a Saturday morning retreat.
Our task was to identify and articulate our values as a congregation and
then use that information to create some structure for our many
ministries. We spent a lot of time
thinking about where we put our time, our talent, and our treasure at Christ
Church, and had a great time in the process.
What do we, as a congregation, hold dear based on the evidence of where
we put our human, building, and financial resources?
Our goal was not to come up with a list of
what we think we should value, or what we think we should be doing, but to use
what we are doing, which is a lot, to figure out what we currently value. Basically, we were looking for the revelation
of the obvious. We were limited to three values so that we had to focus and
push for clarity. The list we came up
with will not be the values of each individual in the congregation, as each of
us, including myself, will have values that are not on the list. We wanted to be able to state what an
outsider might see as the values of our congregation based on the evidence of
our ministry. What we came up with are
worship, fellowship, and outreach. You
will hear more in the near future about the formation of ministry teams and how
we can come together to both support each other in the ministries we currently
have and bring forward new ideas.
This morning we hear Jesus say “Where
your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I think Jesus would also say “Where your time
is, there your heart will be also.”
Where we put our time and treasure matter, according to Jesus, because
those actions tell us what our values are.
Many stewardship sermons have been preached on this passage, extolling
the value of looking at our calendars and checkbooks or online banking
statements to see where our heart is.
And while that is an appropriate application of this passage, the rest
of what Jesus has to say this morning has us dig even deeper into our lives as
Christians.
“Be dressed for action and have your lamps
lit,” says Jesus. “But know this, if the
owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not
have let his house be broken into. You
also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” What does being ready have to do with knowing
that where our treasure is, there our hearts will be found also?
Interestingly, the lectionary pairs this
passage with
a passage from Isaiah in which an angry God gives the people a very stern
rebuke for the way that they worship. “I
have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts,” God
says. I imagine the people were fairly
confused by God’s stern words, since they worship according to the commandments
of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible.
The animal sacrifices and incense offerings are all described in detail
in the book of Leviticus, so why is God so upset that he begins his diatribe this
morning by comparing the Hebrew people to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah,
which is most certainly not a compliment?
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a
horrible story, found in the 19th chapter of the book of Genesis. A close reading of the story, which should be
R-rated for violence, reveals that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a
condemnation of abominable hospitality and gross injustice. The prophet Ezekiel (16) also refers to Sodom
and Gomorrah, and the accusation against them is “pride, excess of food, and
prosperous ease, but they did not aid the poor and needy.” In these first verses from the prophet Isaiah,
the charge against the people is that they bring offerings and make sacrifices
in the temple when what they really need to do is “learn to do good; seek
justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the
widow.” When the people do those things,
then they will no longer be like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Is
the prophet Isaiah condemning all acts of worship? Not at all.
In another few chapters, at the beginning of chapter 6, Isaiah himself
will be in the temple worshiping God when he has his great vision that leads
him to say “Hear I am, send me.” God
does not hate our worship. God hates
worship that is not paired with seeking justice, rescuing the oppressed,
defending the orphan, and pleading for the widow. Worship that does not lead to action is what
God’s soul hates, not worship in and of itself.
God says “wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of
your doings from before my eyes.” Those are acts of worship, acts that call us
to repent of the times we turn a blind eye to human need and suffering.
So,
how are we to be prepared for the coming of Jesus, the thief who wants to steal
nothing more and nothing less than our hearts?
If we listen to the prophet Isaiah this morning, we hear him tell us, in
no uncertain terms, that we are called engage in worship that transforms us and
compels us to work for justice and peace.
Our own baptismal covenant calls us to seek and serve Christ in all
people. We prepare for Jesus by meeting
Him in worship that nourishes us, by seeing Christ in each other and loving
each other even when we don’t always agree, and going out into the world
together to seek and serve Christ there.
Worship, fellowship, and outreach, taken together and done well, help us
practice recognizing and serving Jesus in each other and in the world around
us. I am convinced that when we can
recognize and serve Jesus in each other and in all people, we will be prepared
for Jesus both now and in the age to come.
Amen.
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