Love God

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
October 29, 2023

25 Proper A 

          When our sons were young, Don and I found that noon was a great time for a date.  Lunch is less expensive than dinner, and the boys were in school.  We often went to a small, locally owned restaurant aptly named “Strange Brew.”  The tag line was “where strange is normal.”  The restaurant served only vegan food.  Their concern was for animal rights rather than human health as we could see the staff in the back smoking while they cooked.  This was that long ago!  And to top off the self-proclaimed strangeness of the restaurant, the building had formerly been a butcher shop.

          I am not a vegan.  I have no desire to be a vegan and could not play one on TV if I tried.  But Don has long enjoyed experimenting with vegan cuisine.  Don loved Strange Brew and I love Don, so I ate vegan food.  Plus I do love supporting local, independent restaurants.  Amazingly enough, I found that I actually liked some of the things on the menu.  While the veggie burger could certainly have used a dash of mayo and a slice of cheese, it was pretty tasty.  The hot chai tea with soymilk was quite good, and the peanut butter chocolate shake was amazing.  I came to look forward to going there until the restaurant closed many years ago.  But I would never have set foot in the place had it not been for Don.

          This morning, when we hear the Pharisees ask Jesus “Teacher, which commandment is the greatest,” we know how Jesus will answer.  Jesus will say “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”  Then Jesus will add “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Jesus is not creating something new here.   Jesus is quoting the Shema, the summary of the law, from Deuteronomy 6 which says “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”  Many Jews recite this verse in the morning and at night each and every day.  But why does Jesus add the second part about loving your neighbor as yourself?

          One reason is because together, the two greatest commandments sum up the 10 commandments which Moses received from God on Mt. Sinai.  The first four commandments tell us how to love God.  Have no other Gods, do not take the Lord’s name in vain, do not have any idols, and keep holy the Sabbath Day.  The next 6 commandments tell us how to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Do not covet, commit murder or adultery, steal, or bear false witness, and honor your mother and father.  To make it easy for us to remember, Jesus simply tells us to love God and love our neighbor.  In the Diocese of Ohio, our tagline is love God, love your neighbor, change the world. 

          Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus said “I have come not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them.”  With the summary of the law, Jesus not only simplifies things for us, but also takes the commandments to a new level.  For Jesus, what it means to love God is to love all that God created.*  In the book of Genesis, with which Jesus would have been familiar as a good first century Jew, we are told the story of creation.  After each creation event, God looks at what God has created and declares it “good.”  At the end of the story, after God has created human beings in God’s image, God looked at everything God had created and declares all of creation to be very good. 

          I believe that when Jesus adds the second greatest commandment to the first and tells us that “on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,” Jesus is using the second commandment, at least in part, to explain the first.  If we are not acting with love toward our neighbor, then we are not loving God.  If we are not loving God with all our heart, soul, and mind, we cannot see our neighbor as God sees our neighbor.  And our neighbor is all that God created.

          Just in case the Pharisees are wondering who this Jesus is to challenge them and make us think even so harder about how to love God, Jesus asks “What do you think of the Messiah?”  Whose son is he?”  The Pharisees answer “the Son of David.”  The gospel of Matthew begins with the very words “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” So, the Pharisees are correct.  But Jesus points out that in Psalm 110, David calls the Messiah “Lord.” How can the Messiah be both the Son of David and the Lord?  Those who questioned him were unable to answer.  Jesus has come not just to fulfill the law and the prophets, but to fulfill history.  The Messiah is in the historic line of David, yes, and the Messiah is also the Son of God, transcending history.*  These are Jesus’ credentials for challenging us and showing us how to love God.

          Loving someone else challenges us to love the things, the places, the restaurants, and the people they love.  Sometimes we find that we actually do love those new experiences.  Loving God challenges us to love all that God loves, which is everyone and everything.  God saw all that God made and declared creation good.  Obviously, our goodness does not mean that everything we do is good and we are not to pretend otherwise.  But Jesus showed us how to love God with our heart, soul, and mind by loving God’s goodness in all things, especially people, with a faith that includes, unites, serves, and loves.   This morning, Jesus tells us that we cannot love God without loving what God loves.  That love is not easy and is sometimes downright difficult, but love God and love your neighbor will change the world one small step at a time.

                                                                             Amen.

 

 

*Feasting on the Word, Year A, vol. 4, page 214.

 

Faith, Hope, and Love

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
October 22, 2023

24 Proper A 

          One of my favorite scripture passages, if not my most favorite, is found in the book of Isaiah, chapter 43.  “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” I love this passage for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I rather like my name.  My name connects me with my great-grandmother and my cousin and godmother for whom I am named.  I can still hear the sound of my grandparents speaking my name and the love in their voices decades after their deaths.  And while Charlotte is now a rather popular name, when I was in school no one else was named Charlotte so there was not one single time when there was another Charlotte in my class, girl scout troop, choir or anything else.  So the idea that God has called me by name, that I belong to God, and that no challenge shall consume me has long been a source of strength and comfort to me.

          I think of the passage from Isaiah when I hear God say to Moses this morning “I know you by name” and promise that God’s presence will go with Moses, even though neither Moses nor anyone else is allowed to see God’s face.  Moses belongs to God and God’s presence will never abandon him.  God and Moses have been through a lot together as they have brought the people out of Egypt and through the wilderness.  There have been manna and quail, and uprisings, and water and the 10 commandments, and the golden calf.  Either one would have been justified in giving up on the other at various points in the journey.  But God’s promise is that Moses belongs to God and God will never let go.

          In the gospel, the Pharisees are out to trap Jesus.  First they butter him up with a few disingenuous compliments.  “We know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with the truth, and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality.”  Oh, please.  Insert Jesus’ eye roll.  Then, “So what do you think?  Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”  Clearly this is a trap for if Jesus says “no” then he is an enemy of the state and if Jesus says “yes,” he is an enemy of his own people who regard Rome as a threat to their existence.  So Jesus says “Show me the coin used for the tax” and they show him a coin which bears the image of the emperor.  “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.”  This so totally confuses Jesus’s challengers that they shake their heads in amazement and leave.

          While on the surface, Jesus may have cleared up the issue of what belongs to whom, a small scratch below the surface causes us to dig deeper.  If the image born on the coin indicates to whom the coin belongs, then how do we know what belongs to God?  Where do we find the image of God?  Scripture is clear on the answer.  The first chapter of the book of Genesis tells us that we humans are made in the image of God.  According to Jesus’ logic, which I would prefer not to challenge, that means that we humans belong to God.  All the humans.  Every single human.  So while the coin belongs to the realm of the emperor, humans belong to God.

          In the letter to the Thessalonians, we hear something of what the image of God looks like as lived in the lives of the early Christians.  Paul commends the church in Thessalonica for their work of faith, their labor of love, and their steadfastness of hope in Jesus.  We are reminded that our identity as people made in the image of God who follow Jesus calls us to a life of faith, hope, and love and that our actions, like Paul’s actions and those of the Thessalonians, speak about that faith, hope, and love to the world around us.

          The world seems very dark these days, with violence, fear, darkness and death seeming to have the upper hand.  The situation in the Middle East is explosive.   Congress has no clear path forward and is paralyzed.  Ukraine and Russia are still at war and tensions are simmering around the globe.  There is no obvious way forward on so many fronts.  We don’t always know what to say or how to pray, and I believe God’s heart is broken as God’s beloved humans destroy each other.  This morning we are called to remember that every human being bears the likeness of God.  We all belong to God, who calls us each by name, and God has promised never to abandon us.  As followers of Jesus, we, like the Thessalonians, are called to lives of faith, hope and love in the midst of despair, hatred and death.  Our lives are called to proclaim to the world that darkness and death will never have the final say.  The place to start and perhaps the greatest act of faith, hope, and love, is to see the face of God in the face of those with whom we have little else in common and act accordingly. 

                                                                   Amen. 

Story

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
October 8, 2023

22 Proper A 

          Sometimes a very few words tell an entire story.  In our family, those words would be “birthday cake.”  In our family the words “birthday cake” mean a very specific triple chocolate/peanut butter confection that weighs about 5 pounds.  I know the exact weight because UPS has delivered them all over the eastern part of the US since 2005 when our first born left for college.  Now we have grandchildren so four more cakes are delivered or sent every year.  Just last weekend, Don and I took one to Cincinnati for Sabrina’s first birthday.  But more than just a tradition, as delicious as that tradition may be, getting the birthday cake is about identity.  You know you are part of the family when you get a birthday cake mailed to you, wherever you are, so our daughters-in-law knew they were part of the family long before they were married or even engaged to our sons.  They remember their first birthday cake.  The cake is a rite of passage and getting a birthday cake means that you are beloved and accepted as a member of the family. 

          In the reading from Exodus, we hear a whole story in just a few more words than “birthday cake.”  When God gives the people the 10 commandments, God begins by saying “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”  In those few words, God tells the whole story of the people’s deliverance from exile, from the call of Moses, through the plaques, to the Passover and the deliverance at the Red Sea.  That story is the foundational story for the Israelite people.  Over and over again in scripture, that story is told with the same few words.

          The 10 commandments are not just a set of laws to be obeyed to keep God happy.  The 10 commandments are a matter of identity and a gift to show the people how they are to live in freedom.  The people are to live in relationship with God by having no other gods, nor idols, nor making wrong use of God’s name, and by setting apart one day as sabbath.  The people are to live in relationship with each other by honoring their parents, neither murdering nor committing adultery, nor stealing, bearing false witness, or coveting.  Because the Israelites wanted to make all of life pleasing to God in gratitude for the great gift of freedom, they dedicated themselves to figuring out exactly how to keep the 10 commandments in every aspect of their lives.  This was not a burden, but an act of gratitude and joy for the people.

          The beginning words of Jesus’ parable this morning tell another story.  When Jesus says “There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower,” the original Jewish audience would have immediately remembered a passage from the prophet Isaiah that begins “Let me sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard.  My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.  He dug it and cleared it of stones and planted it with choice vines.  He built a watchtower in the midst of it and hewed out a wine vat in it.”  How could the religious leaders hearing Jesus’ parable not think of this beautiful passage from Isaiah?  But when Isaiah’s vineyard yields wild grapes, God is furious and destroys the vineyard, drawing a parallel between the vineyard and the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians in the 8^th century BC.  So no wonder when Jesus asks what the landowner will do to the wicked tenants in the parable, those listening said “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”  That makes perfect sense given the destruction in the book of Isaiah.

          Both the prophet Isaiah and Jesus tell a love song.  The love song in Isaiah does not end well for the people due to their disobedience and their failure to live as people who were delivered from bondage in Egypt, carried through the wilderness, and set in the promised land.  Ultimately, after much destruction and 150 or so years, the people will be restored to the land having learned much while in exile about how to be God’s people.  The love song in Jesus’ parable of the vineyard ends differently. The landowner takes the one whom the tenants rejected and turns it into a new cornerstone.  God takes the death of the son and turns it into resurrection life, takes hatred and turns it into love.

          How do we, as 21^st century Christians, live our lives in gratitude for the great love of God given to us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus?  We can easily think that Jesus’ parable is about someone else, those who rejected Jesus during his earthly life, that it is a parable only for those who wanted to arrest Jesus but feared the crowds.  But both this parable and the reading from Exodus call us to lives of gratitude for God’s abundant and lifegiving love, gratitude that is expressed not just with our lips but with the actions of our lives, actions that show our identity as people of God, and actions that care for all that God has given us.  At Christ Church, today is all about gratitude as we gather at this table to give thanks to God and receive the bread and wine of thanksgiving, which is what the word Eucharist means.  Later this morning/then we will gather around tables in the Parish Hall or Upper Room and share platters of pancakes as we have conversation about how we live our lives and use our resources as people of gratitude.  How do we care for our part of God’s vast vineyard?  Our lives of gratitude and thanksgiving will use very few words and a lot of action to tell the story of all that God has done for us.

                                                                   Amen.

 

Doing

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
October 1, 2023

21 Proper A

          In 2015, Don and I were both deputies to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Neither of us had been to Utah before and we were unsure what to expect, other than that it would be very hot there in July.  We are both from Arkansas, so we know hot.  The days at General Convention start at dawn and end late, but I managed to get up early and walk most mornings.  What I remember most about those walks, in addition to the breathtaking scenery, is the scorching sun and the intense dry heat.  We knew hot and humid.  We did not know scorching and dry.  If I didn’t get out by 6am, the heat was prohibitive.  But the bizarre thing was that, despite the heat, I would walk 3 miles or so and never break a sweat.  Or at least that’s the way it seemed.  The reality was that the sun was so hot and the heat was so dry, that sweat immediately evaporated.  The risk of dehydration was very real given the hot, dry heat and there were large jugs of cool water in the lobby of every building.  I learned quickly to drink all the water I could hold. 

          I think about the dry heat and scorching sun in Salt Lake City when I hear the concern of the people in the reading from Exodus this morning.  They are in the hot, dry desert and there are no jugs of cool water anywhere to be found.  The total lack of  water is a recipe for disaster and the people are right to complain to Moses “Why did you bring us out of Egypt?  To kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”  The people are frantic and panicking, which is understandable even if God did just assuage their hunger with manna and quail in last week’s reading.  Now God will assuage their thirst with water that comes from a rock.  I cannot begin to imagine what the desperately thirsty people must have felt when water poured from the rock.  This is yet another miracle in the desert that demonstrates God’s love and watch care over God’s people.  In the wilderness, the people are learning what it means to be in relationship with God and to trust God in the most extreme of circumstances.

          In Jesus’ parable this morning, we hear about a father’s relationship with his two sons.  When asked to go work in the vineyard, one son says he will go, but he does not.  The other says he will not go, but he does.  Jesus asks “Which of the two did the will of his father?”  The response from the religious leaders is the first son because the first son actually does the work.  And on a certain level that is correct.  The first son did the will of the father.

The writer of Matthew’s gospel is very concerned about doing the will of God.  In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus says “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”  And in the same gospel, when Jesus is told that his mother and brothers are outside waiting to speak with him, he points to his disciples and says “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”  Clearly, doing the will of God is important to Jesus.

          And yet, when the religious leaders respond that the first son is the one who actually did the will of the Father, Jesus’ response is “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of heaven ahead of you.”  Does that sound like “right answer?”  Just before Jesus tells this parable, Jesus asked a trick question of the religious authorities.  Jesus asked “Did the baptism of John come from heaven or was it of human origin?”  Now Jesus asks another trick question.  “Which son did the will of the father?”  The answer to this either/or question is neither.  The will of the father is neither to say “yes” and do “no,” nor is it to say “no” and do “yes.”   The will of any parent is that words and actions match and that the child can be trusted.  That is the will of the Father in Jesus’ parable.  Trust is the foundation of relationships.  Good works are important but the good works that come from the depths of a good relationship are what really matter. 

          The passage from Philippians calls us into a relationship with God from which good works will naturally flow.  Among other things Paul says “Let each of you look, not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in your that was in Christ Jesus.”  Then Paul goes on to describe the relationship between Christ and God, one in which Christ humbled himself to do the will of God.  Paul ends by saying “For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.”   That does not sound like either of the sons in Jesus’ parable!

          The Hebrew people spent a very long time experiencing all the challenges of the hot dry wilderness, learning to live in relationship with God.  They learned to trust that God would provide, to follow where God led, and to obey what God asked.  They did this because of the relationship God established with them before God ever led them out of Egypt.  Jesus’ parable reminds us that our relationship with God is primary and the good things we do flow from that relationship.  Doing is important.  But doing is not all that matters. What matters is the doing that flows from a relationship with God which we can trust God and God can trust us, or, in Paul’s words, a relationship that enables us to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.           

                                                        Amen.

Generosity

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
September 25, 2023

20 Proper A 

          At Christ Church, we had a unique challenge in 2020.  Sure, we had the same challenges as everyone else.  We were all trying to figure out how to do ministry, offer meaningful worship, and take care of each other in the new world we found ourselves in.  You might think that our unique challenge was the total renovation of the Parish Hall that took place in the midst of the pandemic, but in some ways that was less of a challenge than it would have been with all of our various ministries and community groups meeting here.  No, our unique challenge was that our commercial coffee maker was repossessed by the coffee company.  I think we are the only church on the planet to claim that honor.  The coffee maker was a loaner based on our purchasing a certain amount of coffee, which we had just done when we had to shut down.  With no one in the building, we didn’t need to make, much less buy coffee, so the company came and repossessed our coffee maker.  No amount of complaining to the company made any difference whatsoever.  The company was not interested in a reasonable argument for this was unfair or why we needed that particular coffee maker.  In the midst of everything else going on, this was very small potatoes.  But it seemed ridiculous, unfair and like very poor customer relations.  But I can claim to be the rector of the church that had her coffee maker repossessed.

          I am reminded of this unfair and ludicrous, if trivial, situation with the coffee maker when I read all of the complaints of unfairness in our readings from Exodus and Matthew this morning.  The word “complain” occurs 7 times in the passage from Exodus.  The people complain that they are starving in the wilderness and wish for the days in Egypt when they had their fill of bread.  Apparently their complaining works, or God agrees that their situation is unfair, as God provides manna and quail for the people to eat in the wilderness.  That satisfies the people more or less until chapter 17, when we will hear next week that the people are convinced that they will die of thirst.  And again, their complaining pays off as God provides them with water.  Would God have let the people starve had they not complained?  Who knows, but complaining to God does seems to work better than complaining to the coffee maker company!

          In the reading from Matthew, we hear about a landowner who pays each worker a full day’s wage whether that person worked a full day, or a partial day, or just an hour, which hardly seems like fair labor practices or like a good use of the landowner’s money.  The landowner makes a strategic mistake when he instructs his manager to call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.  Those who worked all day see those who worked an hour getting the same pay they do, and they call “unfair”.  If the manager had just paid those who worked all day first, those workers would have left with their pay and the whole ugly situation could have been avoided. No amount of complaining will change the landowner’s mind and get him to give those who worked longer more or those who worked a shorter day less.  Nor does the landowner rethink his decision to pay those who worked only one hour first and make those who worked all day watch.  Clearly the landowner went to the same school of negotiation as the coffee maker company!

          If these two passages are about complaining and whether complaining to God works or not, then we are left with a draw.  But what if, rather than being a case for or against complaining, these stories are actually about the abundant generosity of God, despite annoying human behavior.  In Exodus, when the people complain that they have been brought out into the wilderness to be killed with hunger, God tells Moses that God will rain bread from heaven.  What a lovely image!  And when the people continue their complaining, God tells Moses that at twilight the people shall eat meat, and in the morning they will have their fill of bread.  And God says “Then they shall know that I am the Lord your God.”   God’s very identity is revealed in God’s abundant generosity, which is a lesson the people will have to learn over and over again in the wilderness.

          Likewise, Jesus’ parable is not about complaining or about fairness, but about God’s generosity.  God’s generosity is unconcerned about human concepts of fairness.  The landowner gave what he promised to those who worked a full day.  They were not treated unjustly.  And had they been paid first  and sent on their way, they would have learned nothing of God’s abundance.  But they learned about God’s abundance when God also gave a full day’s wage to those who hardly worked at all.  The parable is not about fair employment practices, but about God’s identity being revealed through God’s abundant generosity. 

          In the reading from Philippians, Paul commands us to “live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”  When our lives as God’s people are defined by the generosity of  God, we can, in Paul’s words “strive side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel” unconcerned with whether one person has received a greater share of God’s abundance that we have and very concerned that each person receives what he or she needs.  Jesus calls us to let God’s identity be revealed to the world through our lives of abundant generosity.                                                                Amen

Baffled

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
September 17, 2023

19 Proper A 

          Last Monday evening, I made a quick trip to Springfield (Ohio) to see my 91 year old father-in-law and take Fred and his wife Babs to dinner.  We went for a nice drive south of Springfield down to Yellow Springs, then to Young’s Jersey Dairy.  Fred loves ice cream even more than I do, so we stopped at Young’s for an early supper.  We found a table in the cavernous dining room and took a seat.  There was a QR code on the table, which I scanned with my phone for the menu, placed our order, and paid with two clicks.   Ten minutes later, burgers and fries magically arrived at our table.  Fred and Babs were incredulous.  When we finished our meal and were ready for ice cream, we repeated the process and 5 minutes later, our ice cream was delivered to the table.  At this point, Fred said “I don’t know how to live in this world.”  He and Babs were simultaneously overwhelmed, confused, and quite intrigued by this new reality.  A world in which you can order food from your phone, pay for it, and have it appear before you seemed like an amazing but baffling new world.

          I am similarly baffled by the world we hear about in the reading from Exodus, a world in which God acts so decisively over evil.  God heard the cry of God’s people and delivered them from the land of bondage into the land of promise.   God’s decisive action involved a good deal of violence that is disturbing.  Why doesn’t God act so decisively against evil today and could God have found a more peaceful way to liberate the Israelites?  I don’t have the answers to those questions, nor do the commentaries I read this week.  We will have to remain baffled by that world at least for the time being.

The disciples are as perplexed about the new world Jesus describes as I am about the world reflected in the reading from Exodus or as Fred was about a world in which food appears as if by magic.  I am quite sure Peter feels very generous when Peter asks “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?”  But Jesus says “Not seven times, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.”  What would a world look like in which everyone forgave seventy-seven times?  Would we not lose count somewhere around 25 times?   Forgiving seventy-seven times seems at best like competitive forgiveness and at worst like keeping score.

Rather than asking us to keep a score card of how many times we have forgiven someone, I think Jesus is really telling us to stop counting.  The kingdom of heaven is not about counting, but about relationships and community, about treating each other with respect and kindness, a world where the guiding principles are love and forgiveness.  Jesus’ parable shows us the preposterousness of asking for forgiveness for ourselves but denying that same forgiveness to others.  We hear about a slave who begged for forgiveness from his lord, which was granted, but then the slave refused to forgive someone who asked him for forgiveness.   The lord hands the slave over to be tortured until the slave can pay his entire debt, which will never happen since making money while being tortured is impossible. 

Jesus calls us to be a community that mirrors God’s forgiveness, forgiving others as we have been forgiven.  In the letter to the Romans, Paul writes to a community that was in the midst of conflict over the eating of meat and whether to treat one day as sacred or all days as equal.  In dealing with that conflict, Paul reminds the Romans that as Christians we neither live nor die to ourselves.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.  So, then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.  If those words sound familiar, by the way, they are the opening words of our funeral service.  Paul’s point is that we belong to God.  If we belong to God, we are to mirror God’s forgiveness and live in God’s mercy. 

Into this world of God’s forgiveness and love, Joan Walden, Flint, and Colvin will be baptized this morning. Just as Fred and Babs had a hard time knowing how to live in a world in which your phone can summon food to your table, we sometimes have a hard time knowing how to live in the world in which Jesus calls us to live.  Jesus calls us to live in a world where love and forgiveness cannot be quantified, where we recognize that the health of the community is dependent on the health of our relationships with each other, and that those relationships are rooted in the love of God as experienced in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  When we wonder how on earth we are supposed to do that, the baptismal covenant comes to our rescue.  Our baptismal covenant describes the way God calls us to live in a world that is rooted in the love of God for all people.  First, because we cannot be a people of radical love and deep forgiveness alone, the first promise we make is to continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.  We promise to be a community rooted in scripture, fellowship, worship, and prayer.  When we fail to be that community, we promise to repent and return to God.  We promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, to respect the dignity of every human being, to proclaim the gospel with word and action, and to strive for justice and peace.  When we keep the promises we make in baptism, really keep them, we mirror the world Jesus came to usher in.  But we cannot do that alone.  We are not meant to do that alone.    Joan Walden, Flint, and Colvin are being baptized into the Body of Christ this morning where together we are part of the power deep love and complete forgiveness have to change the world.

                                                                   Amen.

Community

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
September 10, 2023

18 Proper A 

          Serving as a summer camp counselor was a crash course in living in Christian community.  I spent three summers at Camp Mitchell in the Diocese of Arkansas when I was in college.  There were 10 or 12 of us on staff, mostly college students, and we lived, worked, prayed, and played together for 10 weeks as we shepherded children of various ages through a week of summer camp.  We looked forward to a wonderful summer, living in Christian community, tending to the children placed in our charge.  However, we quickly learned that a summer at camp was not going to be all peace, love, and little donuts.  On the one hand, we were all very different and often approached the whole idea of camp life differently.   Some of us actually liked bugs and sweating and didn’t mind the lack of hot water and life in repurposed WW 2 army barracks.  Then there was me.  We all had our moments where we hit the wall with fatigue and had to carry each other through.  Camp food was questionable on a good day.  The children could be challenging.  But on the other hand we forged friendships that were rooted in Christian community.  We learned about love and forgiveness, kindness and patience because we had to practice them.  A lot.  We knew we were all needed not in spite of our differences but because of them.  We all knew that we were part of a story larger than ourselves as we helped children find their place in that story.  And at the end of the season, almost all of us signed up for another summer.

          I think about Camp Mitchell when I hear our lessons this morning because they are all teachings about how we are to live in community.  What, you might wonder, do detailed instructions about how the Israelites are to keep the Passover have to do with how we live in community as people of faith.  A lot, actually.  The directions are specifically given to the whole congregation of Israel and the instructions are clear that the whole assembled congregation is to participate in remembering the Passover.  Everyone.  Young, old.  Large families, small families.  Those with wealth and those with nothing.  The able bodied and the differently abled.  Everyone.  Living as a community of faith includes everyone as full participants. 

          The reading from Exodus also reminds us that when we live as a community of faith, we are part of a story larger than ourselves.  The Israelites are instructed how they are to remember the Passover in such a way that a past event becomes a present reality even centuries later.  The people become part of the Passover story through this ritual.  The people are not just to give thanks for what God did for them in the past, but they are to enter into that event by how they prepare the Passover feast, the hurry with which they eat, and the blood they put on the doorposts.  The story of the Passover is their story and every piece of the ritual connects them to a part of the story.  As Christians, we do the same thing in the Eucharist as we take, bless, and break the bread, using Jesus’ own words, to connect us with all that God has done for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  That past event becomes a present reality for us every time we gather together at this table.  We belong to a story much bigger than ourselves, the story of God and God’s people.

          Living in community, even a faith community, is not always easy as my camp colleagues and I found out.  We don’t always agree.  We get on each other’s nerves. We hurt each other.  While the reading from Exodus uses very specific instructions to help us think more generally about life as a faith community, both the reading from Romans and the reading from Matthew give us some more general guidelines for our life together that help us deal with specific instances.  Love one another.  Forgive each other.  Jesus even spells out a process for dealing with someone who sins against you.  His final instruction is “if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”  Finally!  We get to smite someone and give them a piece of our mind and and maybe even tell them that they should go play somewhere else.  Except…..how did Jesus treat gentiles and tax collectors?  He ate with them and called them to be his disciples.  Jesus follows that instruction by saying that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” On the surface, that sounds like we have a lot of power and control over what happens in heaven.  However, in the same breath that Jesus calls us to remember how he treated gentiles and tax collectors, Jesus actually turns our thinking about forgiveness inside out.  In a community of faith, we recognize that the person being bound to an offense for all eternity by our failure to forgive is none other than ourselves.  And the person who is released for all eternity by being willing to forgive an offense is also ourselves.  Failure to forgive harms ourselves as well as each other, and thereby the community of which we are a part. 

At Christ Church, while we do not spend every waking moment together, we are a Christian community that worships, works, prays, and plays together.  We host memorial services and receptions whether for a beloved parishioner or someone we hardly know, we participate in First Serve, make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, build houses for Habitat for Humanity, and take care of each other.  Life in Christian community is not always easy and requires a good measure of love and forgiveness.  But practicing love and forgiveness roots us in the story of God and God’s people and makes that story come alive for ourselves and those around us.  Making that story come alive is our call as God’s people.

                                                                   Amen. 

Labor

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
September 3, 2023

17 Proper A 

          Growing up, my siblings and I spent a good bit of time at Kanuga, the Episcopal Camp and Conference Center in North Carolina.  Our grandparents had retired there, and we spent hours exploring the mountain, the lake, and the woods.  One of my favorite places was a shallow stream and waterfall that we discovered by following a trail through the woods, ignoring a “no trespassing” sign, and listening for the sound of the water to come closer.  The area around the waterfall was one of the most peaceful places on earth, away from the sights and sounds of civilization and away from the cares and concerns of everyday life.

          I think of that waterfall when I read that Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law out beyond the wilderness.  Beyond the wilderness seems like an equally peaceful place, beyond the cares and concerns of Moses’ life, of which there were many.  Much has happened in Moses’ life since he was plucked out of the Nile by Pharoah’s daughter last week.  Moses has grown up in Pharoah’s household, so he was raised as an Egyptian despite being a Hebrew.  Now, Moses has grown up, fallen in love, gotten married, and is working for his father-in-law. That’s a lot of growing up in a week!  And between last Sunday and today, Moses has killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew and fled for his life.  So, when we find Moses out beyond the wilderness this morning, he is in hiding from  Pharaoh who is ready to exact revenge for the murder of an Egyptian.  Moses’ plan for his life is to stay out of harm’s way, work for his father-in-law and put the past behind him.

          But God has other plans.  God has heard the cry of God’s people. God knows their sufferings, and God has a plan.  God is going to deliver the Hebrew people from the Egyptians.  And, in fact, God is going to send Moses to lead the charge.  God is going to send Moses to the site of Moses’ crime, to the very person who is after Moses’ life, to ask Pharoah to release the Hebrew people of whom Pharoah is desperately afraid.   Need we mention Moses’ hot temper, lack of leadership skills, or inability to speak in public?  What could possibly go wrong? 

          This morning, Peter would probably like some time out beyond the wilderness.  Last week, Peter was riding high after correctly identifying Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God.  Last week, Peter was told that he is the rock on which the church will be built, and that he holds the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  This week, Peter objects to Jesus’ prediction that Jesus must go to Jerusalem, undergo great suffering, be killed and on the third day rise.  This is not in Peter’s Messiah job description.  Peter’s plan for his own life does not include following a Messiah who will die a humiliating death.  But Jesus responds “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

          Ouch!  Jesus’s words are harsh words and Peter does need a time out somewhere.  But Jesus needs Peter to understand that following Jesus is not about glory and power, but about service and sacrifice.  Whatever Peter thinks Jesus means by being the rock on which the church is built, Jesus has other plans.

          Moses and Peter have two things in common.  Both are flawed people who are asked to do big things by God.  Moses killed someone and Peter is so totally wrong about who Jesus is that Jesus calls him Satan.  Those are pretty serious offenses, and we would be justified in thinking that their job offers would be revoked.  Yet God knew about Moses’ murder change long before God called to Moses from the burning bush.  Jesus may call Peter “Satan,” but Jesus does not ask Peter to return the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Secondly, both are setting their minds on human things rather than divine ones.  Moses cannot wrap his head around the idea that he should be the one to lead the people out of Egypt, not understanding the power of God to work through him.  Peter cannot imagine that the Son of the Living God would suffer and die, not understanding what God will accomplish through Jesus’ suffering and death.  Both are focused on human limitations rather than divine possibility.

          We can easily think of Moses and Peter as the superheroes of the faith with some super faith power we don’t have, so that we can believe that God does not ask extraordinary things of us.  But that is not what the story tells us and that is setting our minds on human things rather than divine things.  On this Labor Day Sunday, we stop and stand on this holy ground, figuratively barefoot if not literally, fully present to God as we ask God to bless the labor of our lives.  Here, we open ourselves to divine possibility.  The reading from Romans reminds us what God asks of us so that God can accomplish extraordinary things through our ordinary lives.  “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor….rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer, contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.  Mother Teresa of Calcutta once said “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.”  When we do small things with great love, God’s love, things that seem small become extraordinary.  God calls us to set aside our concerns about human limitation and open ourselves to divine possibility.

                                                                             Amen.

Space for God

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
August 27, 2023

16 Proper A 

            Last Sunday, I had the joy of baptizing our youngest grandchild at Christ Church Cathedral in Cincinnati.  So when our vestry meeting on Tuesday began with the question “Where have you seen God this week?” I was ready with my answer.  Clearly the privilege of baptizing my granddaughter, watching her 4 year old sister hold the baptismal candle, and being surrounded by family at the font was a place where I saw and experienced God.  However, that is pretty much the revelation of the obvious.  I also saw God in the gracious hospitality of the Dean of the Cathedral who invited me to participate well beyond simply baptizing Sabrina.  He invited me to help distribute communion and to offer the blessing at the end of the service, which well exceeded the basic hospitality of allowing me to baptize my granddaughter.  The hospitality of the Cathedral included a marked bulletin with my name on it, a locker for my vestments, and a place at the table.  The Cathedral offered me the hospitality that we try to offer here, and that hospitality made space where I could see and experience God.

          If you think this is yet another of Charlotte’s sermons on hospitality, despite the odds being in your favor, you are wrong.  The Cathedral was using its gift of hospitality to make space for God to work, so people could see and experience God.  That is what I believe Shiphrah and Puah are doing in this morning’s reading from Exodus.  The two women are using their gifts of midwifery, birthing babies, to make room for God to work. And God does work, using the Hebrew midwives to subvert Pharoah’s evil plan to kill all the baby boys.  God was working through these women to advance the story of God’s people.  God continues to work in the space the midwives created when the Pharoah’s daughter finds the baby Moses crying in the basket his mother put him in, presumably hoping he would be found by the Pharoah’s daughter.  Our God is a crafty God as Moses’ mother winds up getting paid to nurse her own child. 

          When Jesus asks his disciples “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” they answer John the Baptist, or Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.  Then Jesus asks “But who do you say that I am?”  And Peter scores with the answer “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God!”  The disciples have followed Jesus as he taught, worked miracles, and taught them to pray.  Jesus has made space for God to work so the disciples can see and experience God.  This leads Peter to proclaim that Jesus is the Son of the living God.  As we will see next week, Peter does not have a clue what that means, but for now, Peter is the golden disciple who will become the bedrock on which the church will be built and he is given the keys to the kingdom of heaven.  Those keys are not about power but about trust.  In Jesus, the kingdom of heaven has come near, breaking open in the disciples’ midst.  Jesus is entrusting the disciples and especially Peter to make space in their lives and in their work for God’s kingdom to continue to emerge in the midst of the people. 

          As followers of Jesus, we are inheritors both of those keys and of the trust Jesus placed in the disciples.  We are entrusted with making space for God to work, making space for the coming Kingdom of God to be a present reality that people can see and experience in our midst.  How on earth are we supposed to do that?  Lest we think that we have to do something grand and glorious to make space for God to work in our midst, like turn water into wine, or miraculously heal the sick and raise the dead, Shiphrah and Puah remind us that simply doing the work we have been given to do can make space for God to act.  Paul reminds us in the letter to the Romans that this will look different for each of us, as we are each given different gifts.  Paul lists prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading, compassion and cheerfulness as examples of gifts we have been given to make space for God to act in our midst.  And I will sneak hospitality in here as well as any number of other gifts for ministry that we use day in and day out, from making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, to using our building and grounds skills both here and at Habitat for Humanity, to sending cards and notes of encouragement, to teaching, singing and everything in between.  Much of this we probably do without even really thinking about the impact of what we are doing. 

          Shiphrah and Puah used their gifts as midwives to make space for God to act in their midst.  Their work and the space they made for God to work made a clear and profound statement about who God is.  Likewise, Jesus trusts his followers to use their everyday actions and God given gifts to make space for God to act.  What we do with our actions and how we make space for God to work matters.  The world is watching to see what followers of Jesus do and people form their understanding of God and Jesus based on those actions, good, bad, or indifferent.   Jesus certainly invites us to ponder our answer to his question “Who do you say that I am?”  But Jesus also invites us to ponder the answer to his first question “Who do the people around you say that I am?” and to think about how we might best be a place where people around us see and experience the living God.

                                                                             Amen.

Enough Faith

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
August 13, 2023

14 Proper A

          Don’s and my 16-month-old grandson is quite the daredevil.  When Banks was crawling, he would crawl off the edge of anything if not caught and he earned the nickname “Nosedive.”  If Banks had his way, he would nosedive himself into the bathtub, down the stairs, off his changing table, out of his chair, or wherever else he wanted to go.  The child has no sense of gravity and complete trust either than someone will catch him or that nothing painful will happen. 

          Given the chance, I am sure that Banks would jump out of the boat and into the water to walk toward Jesus just as impulsively as Peter did this morning.  In fact, today’s gospel lesson lends itself to what might be called Nosedive theology.  If we just have enough faith in Jesus we can get out of the boat and walk on water, or roll off the changing table, out of the chair, down the stairs, or whatever and not be harmed.  No one wants to hear Jesus say to them “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  Yet on the other hand, most of us have figured out that gravity always wins.  So what are we to do with Jesus this morning? 

          What we are going to do is dig a little deeper into the story.  Jesus has just fed 5000 men, plus at least as many women and children when Jesus has the disciples get in a boat and head to the other side of the lake.  The disciples are in the middle of the lake, with the wind against them, fighting their way to the other side, when they see what they believe to be a ghost.  Peter wants proof that this ghost is really Jesus so, at Jesus’ invitation, Peter climbs out of the boat and attempts to walk on the water to Jesus.  When he sees the strong wind, Peter becomes frightened and begins to sink.  Jesus saves him with a reprimand: “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

There are two problems with thinking that if Peter just had enough faith, he could walk on water like Jesus.  First, throughout scripture, control over the water belongs to God, not humans.  God caused the great flood that wiped out all living things not on Noah’s ark, and God caused the rains to stop.  God parted the Red Sea, so that Moses could lead the Hebrew people across the water and away from the Egyptians.  In the book of Jonah, “the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up.”  And in the book of Job, God asks “Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?” with the implied answer that it was God, not Job, who did that.  The list goes on and on.  The ability to control the sea belongs to God and God alone.

Secondly, Peter’s problem when he begins to sink is identified as fear.  But when Jesus rescues Peter, he says “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  What Peter and the disciples doubted was the identity of Jesus.  First, the disciples thought Jesus was a ghost.  And, at 3am in the pitch dark in the middle of the water in a boat being battered by waves, a ghost makes a lot more sense than thinking that Jesus has strolled out on the water to check on them.  Then Peter says “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  Peter is testing the identity of their visitor.  When Peter begins to sink and Jesus says “You of little faith. Why did you doubt?” the only thing Peter has doubted is the identity of Jesus.  The point of the story is to prove that Jesus is God, not to make the disciples feel badly because they cannot walk on water.  And at the end of the story, the point has been made, as the disciples say “Truly you are the son of God.”

          Jesus does not call us to believe that if we have enough faith we can walk on water.  What Jesus does call us to believe is that Jesus can walk on water and that Jesus can walk on water because he is God.  What this story calls us to believe is that Jesus is present in our boat with us, whatever storm we may find ourselves in, and that Jesus’ presence with us matters because Jesus is God.  In this very same gospel, Jesus is given the name Emmanuel, which means “God with us.”

          This morning, we will baptize Jordan Repko.  As much as we might like to believe that baptism will prevent any bad thing from happening to us, we all know that is not true.  In baptism, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  Baptism is a matter of our identity.  In baptism, we promise to live as people who are marked as Christ’s own forever.  We promise to be faithful in worship, to turn from evil, to seek and serve Christ in all people, to work for justice and peace, and to use our words and our actions to proclaim the good news of God in Christ.  Some days, walking on water may sound like an easier option!  But Jesus doesn’t call us to walk on water.  Jesus calls us to claim our identity as people who believe that Jesus is in the boat with us, who live as people who believe that there is nothing we must face alone, and who have the courage and the will to persevere in the midst of any storm because we have been marked as Christ’s own forever. 

                                                                             Amen.

A Great Surprise

 Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
July 30, 2023

12 Proper A 

          When I was a child, every Christmas my uncle would send us a huge box of assorted chocolates. There was a chart on the inside of the top of the box telling us which confection was in each of the little plastic cups.  Every night, we would get to choose one chocolate from the box, and because there were only three children in the family, two pounds of chocolate lasted a very long time.  This is where I learned to avoid chocolate covered cherries and this is the beginning of my relationship with chocolate covered cashews.  There was something for everyone in that box and we each got to pick what we liked.

          Jesus’ parables this morning are a bit like that box of chocolates.  There is something to help everyone understand the Kingdom of Heaven.  If you are a gardener, perhaps the parable of the mustard seed is helpful.  Or for bakers, there is the parable of the yeast.  For entrepreneurs, the parable of the hidden treasure might be helpful.  For those in sales, we have the parable of the pearl of great value and for those who like to fish, Jesus offers the parable of the fishing net.  Jesus’ buffet of parables apparently worked for the disciples since at the end of the passage Jesus askes them “Have you understood all this?” and they all answer “yes.” 

          However, Jesus is not offering the disciples or us a buffet from which to pick and choose which parable works for us in understanding the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus is offering us a five course meal of parables and all of them, taken together, are needed to understand the kingdom of heaven.  And understanding the kingdom is important since Jesus taught us to pray “thy kingdom come.”  We should probably know what we are requesting of God.  What do we learn from these five little parables, taken together?

          First, all five parables involve something small and hidden. The mustard seed is small and hidden in the ground.  Yeast is small and hidden in flour.  The buried treasure is small enough to be buried in the ground.  A pearl is small and hidden among other pearls of lesser value.  The net is not small, but the web pretty much disappears when thrown into the sea to catch fish.

Secondly, each parable involves work.  Someone sowed the mustard seed into the field.  The woman took the yeast and mixed it in with the flour.  Someone had to dig up a field to find the buried treasure.  The merchant had to search for the pearls, and someone had to throw that net into the sea.

Lastly, in each parable, that which started off small and hidden becomes large and visible.  The mustard seed grows into the greatest of shrubs.  The yeast does it work and creates an enormous amount of dough.  When the treasure is found, the man sells all that he has and buys the whole field so that the treasure is his.  The merchant sells everything he owns to buy the one pearl.  And the net catches fish of every kind.

So, from these parables, we learn that the kingdom of God starts off small, and with work grows into the full stature of the Kingdom of God.

However, the explanation of Jesus' parables is rarely that obvious.  Pretty much anything we undertake starts small and with work matures into full potential. As we have noted before, Jesus rarely dispenses common sense.  But when we dig a little deeper, we see that each parable is a bit subversive.  The mustard in the parable is actually a weed but in this parable the mustard seed is compared with the greatest of all kingdoms, the kingdom of heaven.  Yeast is a symbol of corruption and impurity in Scripture and is cleaned from homes in preparation for Passover.  Someone who finds buried treasure in someone else's field then buys the field to own the treasure without telling the owner is a thief, and merchants rated right up there with tax collectors and other cheats.  But this cheat sells everything to buy the great pearl, which made it impossible for him to do further business so he likely goes broke.

From these parables, then, we learn that Jesus can use weeds, thieves and cheats to make the Kingdom of Heaven come alive.  Scripture is full of stories about the way God uses thieves, cheats, and weeds.  Our reading from Genesis this morning is evidence of this as Laban tricks Jacob into marrying Leah before he can marry Rachel.  The tables have been turned on Jacob, since Jacob tricked his father to steal his brother's birth right. This is the family through whom God will bless all the families of the earth.  King David was hardly a paragon of virtue yet God used David to create a great nation, and even Noah had some serious character flaws.

Jesus is telling us that when we cannot see the kingdom, when it looks like the powers of evil are winning, when all we can see is sickness, conflict, metaphorical weeds and real thieves and cheats, when no rational person would believe that the kingdom is present, Jesus calls us to believe that we are in the midst of the emerging kingdom.  Jesus calls us to believe that God continually answers our prayer “Thy kingdom come,” that the kingdom is growing in our midst despite all evidence to the contrary, and that God might even be using weeds, cheats, and thieves to make that happen.  The message of the gospel is not that the Kingdom of heaven is present only when our lives and the world are full of peace, love, and chocolate.  The gospel message is that even in the hardest of times and the scariest of places, the seeds of the kingdom of heaven are present and make a gospel difference.  Of course the Kingdom is present in my grandchildren’s hugs, in the energy of our worship and fellowship, and in the good things we try to do for the world around us.  But the kingdom is especially present when we come together at Christ Church to have a funeral and reception for grieving people most of us do not know, or when people of vastly different viewpoints on many things maintain friendships and work together for the common good, or when we do the hard work of listening to those with whom we disagree.  The kingdom for which Jesus taught us to pray is like a great surprise waiting to be discovered by those who dare to look in the most unpredictable places.

                                                                                        Amen.