Change

 

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 18, 2020

 

24 Proper A

 

          My grandfather was born in 1902.  On one of our visits not too long before he died in 1995, he told us with some incredulity that the wheelchair in which he was sitting cost more than his first car.  The wheelchair was an absolutely basic wheelchair-no frills or attachments- and I think he had paid in the neighborhood of $300 for it.  His Model-T Ford-also no frills and no attachments- cost about that in 1922.  For my grandfather, the $300 he paid for the wheelchair was a symbol of the great changes that occurred over his lifetime.  His career field was aviation, which was almost non-existent when he was born and he got to see the Concorde supersonic passenger jet before he died.  He claimed his last car was faster than his first airplane.  When my grandfather was 9, his father died of pernicious anemia, which is cured with B-12 shots now.  He and his generation experienced more change across all aspects of life than perhaps any previous generation and while my grandfather was quite adventuresome and embraced change, even he found all of the changes disconcerting at times.

          This morning, Jesus fields a question from the Pharisees and the Herodians that on the surface, is about taxes.  “Tell us, then, what you think.  Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”  Clearly the Pharisees and Herodians are trying to trap Jesus.  If Jesus says no, then he can be tried for treason.   If he says yes, then he is validating the rule of the Romans over the Jewish people.  Jesus is trapped in a no-win situation.

          However, Jesus rises above the trap.  Jesus requests a coin, then asks whose head and whose title is on the coin.  The answer, of course, is the emperor since the coin is the currency of the state.  Jesus replies “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s.”  And those who wished to trap him were amazed and left him and went away. 

          Jesus seems to have settle the matter of taxes quite clearly.  Give to the emperor what belongs to the emperor.  Pay your taxes.  Give to God what belongs to God.  Obey the laws of the Torah and make your required sacrifices to God.  For once, Jesus gives a clear answer to a question.

          However, by asking whose head, or whose image is on the coin and using that answer to determine to whom the coin belongs, Jesus is taking the conversation about taxes to an entirely different level.  In fact, he is changing the subject all together.  Anyone listening who was familiar with the Hebrew scriptures would have thought immediately of the story of creation in the first chapter of Genesis which says “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he  created them; male and female he created them.”  The image of the emperor may be on the coin, but humans are made in the image of God.

          Jesus has taken the question of taxes and turned the question into one about identity.  What belongs to the emperor may be the coin and the taxes, but what belongs to God is our whole selves.  Our identity as human beings is as people made in the image of God.  We belong to God.  In the reading from Exodus, we hear Moses wrestling with what it means to belong to God as a people God has delivered from bondage in Egypt.  Moses says to God “You have said, “I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways so that I may know you and find favor in your sight.”  To which God replies “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  From this brief exchange, we know that belonging to God means that God knows our name, that God’s presence is with us, and that we can rest in 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, labor of love, and 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.

          Life has changed radically in the last 7 months, from the way we worship, to the way we shop, go to work and school, socialize with family and friends, what we wear, how we tend to our health, and on and on and on.  We do not know when the change will end, or what changes are permanent and what changes are temporary.  All of that change can be quite disconcerting as we navigate rapidly changing waters.  But what has not changed and will not change is our identity as children of God, people made in the image of God.   What has not changed is God’s knowledge of our name, God’s promise to be with us, and when we are overwhelmed by the changes and chances of life, God’s call to rest in God.  What has not changed is our call to faith, hope, and love so that the world can see God’s love through our actions.  Our identity as people made in the image of God who follow Jesus is the taproot that grounds us in God’s love and goodness no matter what around us might change.

                                                                             Amen.

Love and Commitment

 Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 11, 2020

23 Proper A 

          Some years ago, the church I was serving threw a funeral for a beloved 99 year old parishioner.  The parishioner had grown up in the community and at the church and loved both deeply and generously.  She was one of the great philanthropists of the city, supporting the arts, education, and, of course, her church.  Overstating her impact on the community would be difficult.  Her family was small, unwell, and out of town, so when the time came to plan her funeral, we were on our own.  The choir of her university was asked to sing.  Speakers from the arts community were lined up.  The parishioner’s own artwork-creations from her own hand-were borrowed to put in the entryway to the church.  All the arrangements were made to celebrate the life of this remarkable, humble, gracious and generous woman.  When the time for the service arrived, we had a small army of greeters and ushers ready to welcome and assist, musicians prepped, and a fine service planned.  And no one came.  Other than the choir, the speakers, and parishioners, many of whom were helping with the celebration, almost no one showed.  I remember one parishioner, a dear friend of the deceased, sitting in the back of the church weeping and furious that so very few people had come to pay their respects and show their gratitude.  We were sad, angry, disappointed, and felt a bit betrayed by the community.

          So I understand something of the king’s anger when he throws a wedding feast for his son and no one comes.  This is one of the most bizarre of Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom of Heaven.  Because the parable is about a wedding banquet, our thoughts go to love, rejoicing, commitment, and all those things we might learn from a parable about a wedding banquet.  But here we have a king, who we understand to be God, who sends out his servants to call all the invited guests to the wedding banquet for his son, who we understand to be Jesus, but the people would not come. Why?  Were they too busy?  Were they afraid of the king who does seem to have quite a temper?  The king sends more servants with a glorious, mouthwatering description of the wedding feast, and still the guests won’t come.  Some even seized the slaves, mistreated them and killed them.  This is a rather extreme way to send back an RSVP with regrets.  Now the king is understandably enraged, even if his reaction is over the top.  He sent his troops, burned their city, and destroyed the murderers.  Then he sends his servants to invite everyone they find to the wedding banquet, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.  By this time, one would think that the food would be either burned to a crisp, stone cold, or even begun to rot.

          But all’s well that ends well, right?  If the parable just stopped there, we would have a lovely parable about the way the king, or the kingdom of heaven, never gives up even in the face of rejection, trying over and over again to invite people to the banquet, and inviting everyone, good or bad, to the feast that never grows old.  But, unfortunately, the parable does not end there.  One poor guy is not wearing a wedding robe, and he is thrown into utter darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  For many are called but few are chosen. 

          What has this poor man done to deserve such judgement?  He had not planned on going to a wedding banquet when he left home that morning.  He was probably going to work, or out running errands, or dropping the kids off at school when he was summoned to the banquet.  He put down what he was doing and answered the summons.  How could he be expected to have a wedding garment?   And how do we avoid making the same mistake since, after all, we are talking about the Kingdom of Heaven here.

          Since this is a parable about a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son, let’s back up a minute and see what we have learned about the king so far.  First, the king is passionate about the banquet for his son.  This banquet is really, really important to him.  Secondly, it is so important that he never gives up on inviting people to come, despite some startlingly negative responses.  Thirdly, we learn that the king is capable of deep anger in response to rejection, the same deep anger that we see in our reading from Exodus when God is so angry with God’s own people that God threatens to consume them for breaking the second commandment and making and worshipping a golden calf.  My hunch is that in both cases, behind the anger, are feelings of sadness, disappointment, and betrayal.  But the banquet is so important to the king, that when none of the invited guests will come, he opens the doors to everyone, good and bad, and finally the wedding hall is full.  The banquet apparently cannot start until the hall is full.  And the food, whatever is being served, has no expiration date. 

          There are as many theories about why the man got thrown out of the hall and into the utter darkness as there are commentaries on the subject.   Most likely, no one arrived at the wedding banquet with the correct clothes since no one had planned on attending the feast when they left home that morning.  However, in the first century, people often traveled for days on foot to attend a wedding, which often lasted for a week to make the festivities worth the travel.  Wedding garments were often supplied by the host when the guests arrived.  So, by refusing to wear the wedding garment, guest was likely refusing a piece of the king’s hospitality and refusing to enter fully into the celebration of the king’s son.  He wants to enjoy the food and entertainment without giving himself fully to the occasion.

          This parable, along with the story of the golden calf in Exodus, reminds us of two great truths.  First, the God of love is not immune to anger.  God loves us too much not to be hurt and angered by our betrayal and failure to live in faithful response to God’s tremendous love and gracious hospitality.  Secondly, the invitation to the marriage banquet, the feast that celebrates the giving of God’s son Jesus to the world, is so important that the feast demands our whole selves, not just whatever little bit we care to part with at the moment.  In this odd parable about a marriage banquet, we actually do learn a powerful and clear teaching about love and commitment. 

                                                                   Amen.

Belong

 Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

October 4, 2020

22 Proper A 

          A few weeks ago, Don and I had a Zoom reunion with two of our closest friends from college.  Rock, Beka, Don, and I formed a bond our junior year in college that has lasted over the decades, even when we rarely see each other.  The last time the four of us were together in person was about 10 years ago with occasional emails in between.  The occasion for our Zoom reunion was a surprise for Beka on her 60^th birthday.

          So, one might think that a Zoom reunion after all this time would be rather awkward.  What does one say to friends one hasn’t seen in 10 years? 

          However, we reconnected immediately in the way people do who have the sense that in some way, they belong to each other.  We talked for almost 2 hours, sharing updates on our lives, our children, some of our challenges, our various professional activities, and the time flew by as if we had just chatted like this a few weeks ago.  The time we spent together in college, even though it was long ago in a galaxy far away, was such a formative experience that decades later we still belong to each other, and when we are together, we have a shared identity.

          Belonging and shared identity are at the heart of the Ten Commandments as we hear them from the book of Exodus this morning.  Last week, we heard the people complaining about the lack of water in the wilderness.  Have they been freed from slavery in Egypt in order to die of thirst in the wilderness?  God provided water as God provided manna, protection, and everything else the people needed as they journeyed through the wilderness to the promised land.

          Part of what the Israelites learned as they journeyed through the wilderness is what it means to be a people who belong to God.  Yes, God got them out of Egypt.  Yes, there is a promised land of milk and honey waiting for them.  But what does it mean to actually belong to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who led them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and eventually to the Promised Land?

          The 10 commandments tell the people what it means to belong to God and set them apart with an identity as people who live by God’s commandments.  The first four commandments are about the people’s relationship with God.  They are to have no other gods, to worship no idols, to not make wrong use of God’s name, and to remember the Sabbath and keep that day holy.  Their identity is as a people who belong to God and there a specific ways the people are to nurture that relationship.  But belonging to God and being God’s chosen people are not just about the people’s relationship with God.  The people belong to God and because they belong to God, they also belong to each other.  So, the next 6 commandments govern their relationship with each other.  Honor your father and mother, and do not kill, commit adultery, steal, bear false witness, or covet.  The thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpets, and the smoking mountain all testify to the solemness and sacredness of the relationship between God and God’s people.

          In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is clear that he has not come to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them.  And when Jesus is asked which is the greatest of the commandments, rather than choose one, Jesus replies “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  Rather than enumerating 4 ways we are to be in relationship with God and 6 ways we are to be in relationship with each other, we are to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind and love our neighbor as ourselves.  If we do that, we will have fulfilled the law and the prophets.  We will truly love God and each other.  We will completely and totally belong to God.  The world will see our actions and know us to be people of God.

          Suppose, then, that the vineyard the tenants are to tend in Jesus’ parable are those relationships.  Suppose that the tenants have been left to water and care for their relationships with and between God and the people.  The fruits of those relationships, when nurtured properly, would be love and respect, a sense of identity as people of God and belonging to God.  But the tenants do not see their job that way.  The fruit of their labor belongs to them and is a commodity to be used for personal gain.  So when the vineyard owner sends his slaves to collect the produce, the slaves are beaten, stoned, and killed.  Such is the love of the landowner for the vineyard that he sends more slaves, thinking for some absurd reason that they will be treated differently.  But they receive the same treatment.  Then, the love of the landowner completely overcomes all rational thought and the landowner sends his son, thinking that the slaves will treat him better.  Predictably, the tenants kill the son.  Jesus’ hearers assume that the landowner will put the tenants to a miserable death.  But instead, the love of the landowner, who we understand to be God, is so great that the landowner will bring new life out of the death of God’s son, a life that will produce the fruits of the Kingdom.

          We belong to that Love.  Our identity as Christians is bound up in the Love that never gives up, Love that is stronger than our selfish, sinful ways, Love that took death and created new life.  We are called to nurture the vineyard of love and life-to love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul and to love our neighbors, all of our neighbors, as ourselves.  The fruits of that vineyard will change the world.

                                                                   Amen.       

Light

 

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 27, 2020

21 Proper A 

        On my morning walks and in my car, I listen to a lot of country music.  The song that has caught my attention lately is titled “Be a Light” sung by Keith Urban and Reba McIntyre.  The song was written this year and is clearly meant to address the current situation in which we find ourselves.

The refrain is this:

          In a world full of hate, be a light

When you do somebody wrong, make it right

Don't hide in the dark, you were born to shine

In a world full of hate, be a light.

There are a number of verses to the song which spell out what is meant by “Be a light” such as “in a time of war, be peace” and “in a time of doubt just believe.” The words of the last verse are

“Yeah, it's hard to live in color,

when you just see black and white

In a world full of hate, be a light.”

The message of the song is clear and is a gospel message whether the author of the song intended that or not.  In a world full of hate, be the light.

          I don’t find a lot of light in our gospel lesson this morning, though.  First, the religious authorities are challenging Jesus’ authority, to which Jesus replies with a question.  “Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?”  This is a trick question because if the authorities say from heaven, then they should have believed John, which they did not.  If they say of human origin, they will have the crowds mad at them and could have a revolt on their hands.  Either way they answer, they lose.  Not much light there.

          Then we have what is, in my humble opinion as the mother of two sons, Jesus’ best parable.  Which son does the will of the father?  The one who says “yes” but does “no” or the one who says “no” but does yes?  And does it matter since the work in the vineyard got done? 

          Which son did the will of the father?  The chief priests and elders say that the one who actually went and worked in the vineyard did the will of the father. And on one level, that is true.  What the father wanted was for the work to get done and the work was done.  But Jesus’s response to their answer is “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of you.”  That does not sound like “right answer!” to me.  The chief priests and elders will still get into the Kingdom of Heaven, but they will be at the back of the line.  There’s not much light in this parable either.

          There is not much light in this parable because neither son did the will of the father.  The will of the father is not a choice between right words or right actions.  The letter to the Philippians describes the relationship with each other and with God that we are called to have, and it does not look anything like the relationship either son had with the father in the parable.  The apostle Paul writes “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.  Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”  Does that sound like either of the sons in the parable?  I think not.  The one who does the will of God is the one whose actions and words match, and whose actions and words look to the interests of others and match the words and actions of Christ.  That is the person who does the will of God and that is where light is to be found.

God wants our words and our actions to match.  Last week at the 9am service, we baptized little Charlotte Rankin.  At every baptism, we are asked to renew our baptismal covenant and we are asked five questions about how we will live out our faith.  We are asked if we will continue in the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.  We are asked if we will proclaim the good news by word and example, if we will resist evil, if will seek and serve Christ in all people, and if we will respect the dignity of every human being and work for justice and peace.  Our responses to those questions are always an enthusiastic “I will with God’s help.”  I’ve never heard anyone say “I’m good with the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, but let me think about respecting the dignity of every human being.”  For our words and actions to match, we are called to build our busy lives, including the use of our time, our skills, and our financial resources, around those promises.  We are called to make our political decisions, our philanthropic and charitable decisions, and our decisions about how we respond to hate and intolerance match the words we profess with our lips.  In a world full of hate, we are called to be a light.

While country music may make being a light sound easy or at least simple, we know that light sometimes shines on things we would rather not see.  Light can blind us as we move from darkness to light and our eyes, and our souls, take time to adjust.  Light is not always popular as the light illuminates the darkness of fear, hatred, and prejudice that we may claim do not exist.  But country music is not the only call to be the light.  Earlier in Matthews gospel, Jesus said to his followers “‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” 

 

We are the light when we live with our lives the promises we make in baptism.  Don’t hide in the dark.  You were born to shine. In a world full of hate, be the light.

                                                                             Amen.

                   

Labor

 

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

September 6, 2020

18 Proper A 

          From the time I was a little girl, one of our family rituals was a traditional southern New Year’s Day dinner.  This meal always, always includes pork chops, black eyed peas, turnip greens, and cornbread.  When Don and I first moved to Ohio in 1989, I was shocked to find row upon row of sauerkraut on grocery store shelves at the end of the year, and nary a black-eyed pea in the county!  What we ate, and still eat, on New Year’s day is part of our identity as a southern family, with all the good and the ugly that identity and history hold.  Whether we actually like black eyed peas and turnip greens is a moot point.  This is what southerners eat on New Year’s in hopes that the year will be healthy and successful.  And yes, we did eat all of the above this past January 1 despite whatever evidence to the contrary!  Rituals are about identity, after all, not magic.

          Rituals are one of the ways we make sense of the world, ordering the world in ways that give us identity.  We hear in the reading from Exodus this morning about the ritual surrounding the Passover, a ritual rich with meaning.  The story does raises a lot of questions, though.  Are are the Egyptians not also children of God, even if they did enslave God’s chosen people and try to kill all the firstborn males?  Why did God plan to kill every Egyptian firstborn, both male and female, both human beings and animals?  And could God really not tell the Hebrew houses apart from the Egyptian houses without the blood on the door posts?

          But when I set my questions about this passage aside, what I find is the description of a ritual that will remind the Hebrew people from the time of the Exodus until now about God’s mighty act of deliverance.  The Passover ritual reminds the people of the way God delivered them out of Egypt and set the people on their journey to the promised land.  The people girded their loins and left in a hurry, with no time to leaven their bread, to make their escape before Pharaoh’s heart was hardened again.  God called the people to reenact this ritual year after year not to glorify the past, but to remember what God had done for them.  Remembering what God did for them in the past would help them see God at work in their present and trust that God would be at work in their future, whatever situation or circumstance they found themselves in.  The yearly celebration of the Passover became key to the people’s identity and to God’s identity as well, as in the Hebrew Scriptures God often says “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of bondage in the land of Egypt.”

          We are missing our familiar rituals these days, having worshipped in new ways since mid-March.   Our rituals of worship-our music, the order of our worship services, and communion itself-give us our identity as Christians who identify as Episcopalians.  Our rituals continually remind us of what God has done for us in the past so that we can see God at work in the present and trust that God will work in the future.  However, just as Moses would receive the 10 commandments after the people were liberated from Egypt and those commandments would also give the people identity as they lived in response to what God had done for them, the letter to the Romans reminds us this morning that we are called to live a certain way in response to all that God has done for us, and that way is no different from the way the Hebrew people were called to live.  Paul writes “For the one who loves another has fulfilled the commandments.”  He goes on to say that the commandments can be summed up in this word “Love your neighbor as yourself” and that love is the fulfilling of the law.  Not only do our rituals and the rituals of the Hebrew people remind us of all that God has done for us, those rituals also call us to live in response to God’s mighty work on our behalf.

          Scripture is honest, however, in admitting that all this love is not always easy.  This morning, Jesus tells the disciples what they are to do if another member of the church sins against them.  He lays out a detailed path to reconciliation, and what one is to do if the offending member refuses to listen.  If the member refuses to listen even to the church, Jesus says to let that one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.  Because this is Matthew’s gospel, and Matthew loves the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, we could easily think that Jesus is telling us to treat such a person as an outcast-someone who can be discarded from the fellowship of the community.  But how did Jesus treat the gentiles and the tax collectors?  He dined with them.  He called them to be his disciples.  He healed them.  So much for the outer darkness!  Jesus tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves-our gentile neighbor, our tax collector neighbor, our neighbor whose politics are different from ours, our neighbor who is a different color, faith, or gender orientation from ours. 

          Taken together, our readings this morning remind us that while the rituals of our worship ground us in what God has done for us and in God’s promise that God is acting in our lives now, we are not the passive recipients of such rituals.  We are called to live as people for whom God has acted mightily, people God has carried through the waters of death into the promise of new life.  We do that by showing the same love to others that God has shown to us, even to those who have offended us.  We do that with the labor of our lives, whatever that labor might be.  While Labor Day is a secular holiday, Labor Day is also an occasion for us to give thanks for the gift of our Labor, to commit ourselves to working for meaningful labor at a decent wage for all people, and as Christians, to use our labor to be the love of God for our neighbors and the world.  Our rituals remind us of all that God has done and continues to do for us.  Our lives are that ritual for the world. 

                                                                   Amen.

 

Divine Possibility

 Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 30, 2020

17 Proper A 

          In a week that has seen wildfires in California destroy almost 400,000 acres of land and livelihood, hurricane Laura leave a wake of devastation destroying homes and whole communities, racial violence and protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, political strife and turmoil as we approach a political election, on a Sunday when we ask God’s blessing on our teachers and students for a school year like no other, we hear the story of Moses and the burning bush.  Moses is out beyond the wilderness, keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, when he has an encounter with God in the form of a burning bush that is not consumed by the fire.  In the face of all that challenges us, about which there seems to be precious little we can do to make a difference, a respite out beyond the wilderness, away from the problems of the world, where we could tend sheep, metaphorically at least, and perhaps encounter the Divine along the way sounds pretty good.

          Moses, however, is not just out enjoying a nice pastoral respite.  When we last saw Moses, he was a baby.  Last Sunday, we heard the story of his birth and how he was hidden from Pharaoh until he was three months old, because Pharaoh wanted to kill all the Israelite male babies.  When his mother put him in a basket in the river, one of Pharaoh’s daughters found him, took him as her own, and hired Moses’ own mother to nurse him.  Now, Moses is grown, married, and 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 the 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.

          God has other ideas, however.  God has heard the cry of God’s people, who are enslaved in Egypt.  God knows their suffering and God has a plan.  God’s plan is for Moses, a fugitive on the run, to return to the scene of the crime and ask the person who most wants his life, Pharaoh, if he can please release the Israelite people, who we know Pharaoh fears losing because that is why he enslaved and oppressed the Israelites to begin with.  No wonder Moses protests “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”  What part of God’s plan makes any sense at all?

            Jesus has a plan this morning that makes no sense whatsoever to Peter.  Last week we heard Jesus ask the disciples “Who do you say that I am?”  And we heard Peter reply “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.”  This week, Jesus predicts his own suffering, death, and resurrection.  Jesus’ words do not fit with Peter’s plan for Jesus at all.  When Peter responds “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!”, Jesus’ rebuke cuts to the bone.  “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.”  Peter, who last week was given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, is now being called Satan.

          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. Yet God still intends for Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and Peter still holds 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.

          In the midst of all that is going on in the world today, Jesus calls us to set our mind on divine possibility, not human limitations.  In the face of natural disasters, disease, racial unrest, political turmoil, and decisions we never thought we would have to make for our children, what could Jesus possibly mean?

          I believe at least a piece of the answer is found in the reading from Romans.  “Let love be genuine….hold fast to what is good…outdo one another in showing honor…contribute to the needs of the saints…extend hospitality to strangers…do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  Setting our mind on divine possibility rather than human limitation is to focus on what God can do through us, not what we cannot do alone.  What amazing work can God do through us when we love, hold fast to what is good, contribute to the needs of the world, or offer hospitality to strangers, whether people we do not know or people with whom we disagree.  What can God do through us when we rejoice in hope, practice patience in suffering, and persevere in prayer?  When we believe that there is precious little we can do in the face of so many challenges, we are setting our minds on human limitation.  Jesus calls us to set our minds on divine possibility and ask what God, working through us, can accomplish.  God working through Moses will liberate God’s people from Egypt.  In Jesus, Peter will see God triumph over death.  What might God accomplish through us in these challenging times when we set our minds not on human limitation but on divine possibility?                                                                       

                                                                        Amen.

Normal

 

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 23, 2020

16 Proper A 

          “When will life go back to normal?”  As we move further and further away from February and more and more into pandemic life, I both hear and ask this question more and more.  Anyone on the Christ Church staff will tell you that I am not immune to longing for life to get back to normal. I think most of us wish for the time when we could come and go as we please-without a second thought about whether we have a mask on hand, a time when we could worship in our comfortable and familiar ways, when decisions about how to educate our children did not involve a life threatening virus, and we could see family and friends, plan vacations, and do so many other things that have been interrupted by this virus.  “Normal” is defined as the way life was back in February and we ask “When will life get back to normal?”

          I imagine that the Israelite people were wondering the same thing as they toiled away in the hot Egyptian sun.  The Israelite people had a good relationship with the Egyptians when Joseph was alive as Joseph was the one who kept the Egyptian people from starving during the famine.  But now there is a king who never knew Joseph, nor the story of Joseph’s people.  Because the Israelites were so numerous and strong, the Egyptian king was afraid.  Fear caused the Egyptian king to force the Israelites into hard labor.  But the more the Israelites were oppressed, the more they multiplied, which created greater fear among the Egyptians who demanded harder service from the Israelites.  The Israelite people must have wondered when life would get back to normal.

          When Joseph’s people have been pushed to work harder than humanly possible and were still multiplying, the king of Egypt ordered all of the Hebrew baby boys to be killed at birth.  Rather than getting back to normal, life is getting unimaginably wretched. 

          Enter Shiphrah and Puah, two Hebrew midwives who refuse to obey the King’s command.   These two women were unlikely candidates to stand up to power.  They were not politicians, royalty, or military leaders.  The two midwives are two ordinary women going about the work they have been called to do, delivering babies.  In the course of that very normal work, they are given the opportunity to make a difference, and they do.  And their work moves the story of God’s people forward as the baby Moses is not killed, ends up being raised in Pharaoh’s house thanks to the shrewdness of Moses’ sister, and eventually-to jump way ahead in the story-leads the Hebrew people out of Egypt.

          Shiphrah and Puah do not move the story of God’s people backward to the “normal” the people knew when Joseph was ruler of Egypt.  The two women push the story forward as they find creative, even subversive ways to thwart Pharaoh’s plan.   In answer to the question “When will life go back to normal,” God’s response is to call the people forward into new ways of being God’s people.  I believe the same is true for us.  Getting back to normal is to look only backwards rather than live into the new story God is creating.

          In the reading from Romans, Paul says “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  In good times and even more so in challenging times, God calls us to allow ourselves to be transformed, to be changed, so that we can discern the will of God.  Shiphrah and Puah refused to be conformed to the world and discerned that the will of God was not in killing the baby boys of the Hebrew mothers.  The daughter of the Pharaoh, the very man who ordered the killing of the babies, was not conformed to the world as she took a Hebrew baby boy as her own son, having discerned what was good and acceptable and perfect. The world calls us to look back and set our sights on what has gone before.  God calls us to be transformed and look forward to being the people God is calling us to be.

          This morning, Jesus asks the disciples “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  The disciples reply “Some say John the Baptist, but others say Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  The disciples report that the people are looking back to figure out who Jesus is.  Jesus then asks “But who do you say that I am?”  And Simon’s response is “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  Simon is transformed in that moment, as he looks not backwards, but forward to see what God is doing.  As a symbol of that transformation, Jesus gives Simon a new name and the disciple is known by the name Peter from that point forward.  As we will hear next week, Peter is not immune to looking backwards as he misunderstands what it means to be the Son of God, but Peter does know that Jesus is not someone from the past.

          Jesus asks us “Who do you say that I am?”  If we answer with Peter, and claim that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, that answer means that we are willing and ready to move forward with Jesus into new life.  If we answer with Peter, we, like Shiphrah and Puah, are offering our gifts for use in creative, and perhaps subversive ways, to move the story of God and God’s people forward.  If we answer with Peter, we are allowing ourselves to be transformed, not held to the values of the world, but willing to discern the will of God-what is good and acceptable and perfect-and look with excitement to the future.   

                                                                                      Amen.