Focus

This sermon is based on the lesson of the widow's mite, found here.

Look at the scribes who wear the long robes in the marketplace—they pray magnificent long prayers and record the many tenets of our faith. Their prayers are meaningful. These are the words that must cross the chasm of the cosmos to the very ear of God. And Look! Look at the wealthy of our community, giving so much money to the treasury of our faith. They truly bless us with their gifts. Amen. Amen!

 

This is how the scene in our gospel might look if we were actually there--immersed in the culture of the time. This is the socially-approved perspective. Those who have power and status have the attention, and people pay homage to them. The people who have the focus of the people keep the focus on themselves, and so the people keep focusing on them. The camera doesn’t move.

 

Did you catch what was missing in the retelling? Jesus caught that, too. Jesus moves the camera to an area that doesn’t get a lot of attention, and says to pay attention there.

 

In today’s gospel, people are greeting, walking, devouring, praying, and giving. Scribes are praying long prayers and rich people are giving large amounts to the treasury. People greet these scribes in the streets—these scribes who pray long prayers and wear the long robes. People probably also admire these rich ones for giving so much to keep their church going.

 

What is faithful? In our socially-approved retelling of the gospel, faithfulness is a showy long-winded and fairly empty public display and shallow greetings with popular figureheads. Faithfulness is making sure you keep enough to live in luxury and then ornately depositing the excessive surplus in good causes for all to see.

 

Jesus shifts the focus, though. Jesus zooms in, underneath all the superficial wealth and words and focuses in on a different sort of attitude. He looks at a couple of practically worthless coins in this pile, and finds for us someone who is never seen, who gives from the take home, not the leftovers, and says this is where it’s at. This is faithfulness.

 

Jesus shows us the widow.

 

Read the gospel again as it’s actually recorded: 

"As [Jesus] taught, he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, ³⁹ and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! ⁴⁰ They devour widows' houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation." ⁴¹He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. ⁴² A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. ⁴³ Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. ⁴⁴ For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

 

It would seem to me that it’s about attitude. It’s not that the scribes walk in long robes and are greeted with respect and get seats of honor, it’s that they like doing these things—often at the expense of people like the widow—a person who can barely support herself.

 

It’s not that the rich people give large sums, it’s that they give out of their abundance, their leftovers, after their luxurious feasts and fancy clothes and whatever else they buy has been bought. How does that balance out?

 

Now, I have to admit, I felt really guilty as I was going through these texts. I am guilty of missing the point, of investing my time and money in myself from time to time. I am guilty.

 

I am also guilty, then, of turning this whole thing around and making it about me. Jesus is standing here, highlighting the widow, turning the camera on her, pointing out the good that is going on, and what do I do? I move the camera back on me.

 

How many times do I—or we—do that? Look at a situation where something amazing is happening and evaluate how it affects us. There’s a ton of good going on and we totally miss it because we’re focused on the big center stage show rather than the sidelines. We throw the weight where it shouldn’t be.

 

When our focus is self-centered, that is sin. Jesus came to tell us this—to remind us where we need to adjust our perspective, move the camera, widen our gaze. And then, Jesus came to forgive and let us try again. We make mistakes. We are forgiven again, and freed to try again.

 

Jesus moves the focus to where no one would think to look and points out an amazing person. The widow. If we turn her into an archetype, an example, or a source of our guilt, we start seeing only what the widow represents to us and we stop seeing her.

 

We can do what Jesus did—move the focus to those places people don’t often notice and highlight the great things happening there. Getting the focus off of ourselves, and lifting up, complimenting, supporting those who are doing well. We are freed to be—in the words of Martin Luther—a servant to all. We can serve all by highlighting all, not just those already in the spotlight.

 

In today’s gospel, hands are open—in greeting, in prayer, and in offering. One set of those hands is highlighted. The widow’s. Jesus points her out as an amazing person. We can celebrate her open faithfulness and act of charity. If we forget, we remember that we are freed to try again. Jesus renews us every minute to start fresh, change our perspective, our attitude. We can go out with open hands, too—hands open in service.

 

One of the things I loved about November 6—every voting day, in fact—was that the scales, which are so often unbalanced, are evened out, because no matter what I have—status, time, class, stuff, money, talent—I have one vote. One. No more, no less. Everyone gets that—and only that. You can’t buy more votes, there are no deeds so you can accumulate more like cars or shoes, you can’t take someone else’s from them. Everyone gets the same amount of the spotlight.

 

Maybe we start in our own lives—celebrating the things that often go unnoticed. Maybe we recognize that all we have—all of us, are God’s, and then treating everything and everyone that way. Amen.

Sermon July 2-3

The sermon was based on the reading from Matthew in the lectionary, found here.

Matthew 11:16-19. 25-30

The Golden Generation, the Baby Boomers, Generation X, the Millennials—each era of our modern and post-modern history has had a distinct character, identified by a generational label. This is not an easy thing to do—think about it. So many different individual personalities exist in every age...how do you avoid over-generalizing? Well, our society started using letters and years to do that job. But really, how would you identify this generation? This age?

Jesus is faced with this task in his time. He’s looking at the people around him—his generation—and trying to get a handle on just what they’re all about. This generation, he says, are like children calling to each other in the marketplace. They call to each other—children to children. What do they say? These kids are calling to those kids, claiming that “we played and you didn’t dance, we wailed and you did not mourn.” They’re bossy kids who all want to make the rules and have everyone else do what they want. You can almost see the kids yelling at one another.

'You didn’t do this for me.'

'Yeah, well you didn’t do that for me, so why should I do anything for you?'

Everyone wants to be in charge. As a result, no one is. Neither side will yield and cooperate, so they end up doing nothing.

This attitude extends out to their treatment of John and Jesus. They play it so that no one can be in charge. John abstains from eating and drinking—that’s weird, maybe he’s possessed—clearly they shouldn’t listen to him. Jesus does eat and drink—with sinners—well, that surely doesn’t work. The generation has made it so that anyone who disrupts the status quo is clearly unreliable.

If they’re not credible, no one has to listen to them. They avoid accountability for what Jesus teaches by putting him into a convenient little category that allows them to not listen. If they don’t have to listen they don’t have to change. Change is hard. Thinking about it is excruciating. Unbearable unknowns of change and possibility…possibility of what? Failure? Success?

Marianne Williamson said that “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.'” Our potential to do good, to change the world, is terrifying. Why? Well, it won’t be like this. We’re comfortable with how things are now—I know I am. If we change, we might not have what we have now—cable TV, microwave dinners, shopping malls. That might change. We might not have what we have now—people dying of hunger, infants and children exposed to preventable disease, an environment that is disappearing due to development. That might change.

Of course, there is the other thing to fear—the work we’d have to do to affect the change. It doesn’t get better on its own. That’s probably no surprise. Here’s the thing, though—the world is already changing all the time. Think of just ten years ago… no war for us yet in the Middle East, no Facebook, more limited use of cell phones. That's all different now, and the world didn’t do that on its own. We do that, too. Our action, our inaction, our buying into the system perpetuates the future we live into. We act to cause it; we could act to change it.

Monday is the Fourth of July—Independence Day. Who are we working to make more independent? We often celebrate our own independence, and, if asked this question, we look to the children around us. That is all well and good, especially when thinking about the future of the world. But do we dare go deeper and ask how our independence affects the people we won’t see?

What about the people who won't be at the parades or barbeques? How do we change the system to create independence for those who don’t have it?

Is that scary?

Who would fear change? Perhaps (like those children in the marketplaces) it is those who always need to know what is going on. Those who need to be in control—to lead, to be wise, to be righteous. If you don’t get it, how could you be wise? How could you lead? How could you know how to do what is correct and proper?

Again, it is the children that Jesus uses as example. This time, however, it is not the childishness, but the childlike innocence he talks about. They don’t need to know what is going on all the time—because someone else takes care of them, and they trust that person. They trust whoever is taking care of them. Also, the status quo isn’t yet ingrained--prejudices and stereotypes don't exist yet. Minds like these can grasp this radical alternative reality that Jesus suggests. Creativity, wonder, and possibility are all still real. Worldly limitations haven’t set in yet. Children—infants—don’t need to be in control of the whole world, and they do see it with really fresh eyes.

How can we, who have these worldly rules and limits cemented in our minds, get past our fear? How do we allow ourselves to trust like little children—regain that childlike innocence? How do we see the world with wonder, imagination, and possibility? If we slowed down and took just this one moment, this one decision at a time, we might realize that the world is really made up of just that—little actions. Individual actions. One at a time. We get away from being selfish by being mindful of ourselves. Our actions—and how they affect others…not ourselves.

That’s a lot to ask. That's a lot to carry. That burden, of our actions, can drag us down, overwhelm us until we feel like the world does hang in the balance of our smallest choices.

Again, Jesus speaks to that. All those burdens being carried—we are invited to bring them to Jesus, who promises rest. This isn’t the sort of rest that equates to laziness. This is the invitation to live your life. We’re free, so go do what we’re meant to do. We get to work…with Jesus. Rather than laziness, the “What a waste—I got nothing done,” feeling, it’s the “I really did something today,” idea.

It’s about attitude. It’s about trusting Jesus and his teachings. It’s about not making excuses or avoiding issues. It’s about being—being yourself, allowing all that potential, all that light, to shine through. It’s about not being afraid of change. It’s about not being bound by the status quo. It’s about living your life in every day, every moment, every breath.

What will this generation—this age—be compared to?

What do you want it to be?

Isaiah 58:1-12

This sermon focuses on the text from Isaiah, part of the Revised Common Lectionary texts for the week found here. An audio version of the sermon can be found here.

Proper procedures—our lives are full of them. Get good grades. Do your homework. Show up for work. Pay the bills. Make sure you and your family have food, shelter, and clothing. Vote. Pay your taxes. Mow your lawn. Keep a tidy house. Show up for ball games and concerts to support the kids. We do have a certain social code we live by—expectations we follow and boundaries that we respect in order to live reasonably peacefully with each other. This makes sense—we don’t want to have anarchy, so there needs to be some sort of moral guide we follow.

We’re not unique in this. Cultures throughout the centuries have had similar social structures and codes. Ancient Israel had one. In today’s reading, we’re given a glimpse of one of the codes they needed to follow—religious fasting. The Ancient Israelites are fasting, going without food, as is proper procedure for their society. They’re doing what was considered right—humbling themselves before God according to their rituals.

Something’s wrong, though. God isn’t noticing their humility. That sounds a little ridiculous at first, doesn’t it? A bit contradictory? Noticing humility—I’m not sure how you get someone to notice you’re being humble. Something like “Look at me! Look at me! I’m being humble.”

The real issue is that nothing’s happening in response to what they’re doing, and we can maybe understand that attitude at least a little bit. I mean, if I mow my lawn and I pay my bills and I show up for work and I vote and I pay my taxes and I clean my apartment, shouldn’t there be some sort of recognition for me? Maybe I should get a break from my job, or I should be able to afford nicer clothing, or I should at least have someone compliment my work. Or I should stop saying “I.”

That’s the catch, isn’t it? While there may be nothing wrong with working for a promotion, etc. we sometimes run the risk of becoming too self-centered in our work. When we get overly focused on what’s going on in our own individual little life, we lose sight of what’s important for the world and for our community. It’s like seeing just a piece of a whole picture--like looking at a tree in the corner of the Mona Lisa. God tells the Israelites this has been their problem all along. They’ve gotten so caught up in the mechanics of their individualized rituals and codes that they’ve missed out on one of the most elemental gifts God has given them—each other.

Right after the Israelites ask why God hasn’t noticed their fasting and humility, God speaks through Isaiah, saying “Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist.” This sort of behavior doesn’t work—you’re thinking only of yourself. This isn’t how you make the world you live in whole again. A relationship with God is only possible when there is a relationship with one another, and vice versa. There is a reason we call ourselves a community of believers. Each week, we confess and acknowledge our belief that we are all God’s children and live in God’s world.

In Isaiah, God tells the Israelites to mend their relationships. Now, it is tempting to say that we here in Lincoln, Nebraska, are not connected to some people—people in New Hampshire…or Mongolia…or England…or Egypt. That’s simply not true. We have a connection to more people than we could possibly realize…I’m willing to bet that probably 90% or more of you have clothing items on right now that you did not make and have no idea who did. Yet here you are, clothed because of someone in China or Mongolia or the United States who made what you are wearing. What about food? Farmers we’ve never met grow the wheat or sugarcane to make food items that end up in HyVee. We are inherently tied to a large amount of the world simply through the way we live our daily lives, yet we don’t consider too much more of it than our own little piece of the picture most of the time.

So God says through Isaiah, fix this. Open your eyes and see that you are truly connected to more than just your little circle of friends. You have been entrusted with the care of the world and each other, yet the balance and distribution of resources is greatly out of proportion. You are stewards, caretakers, managers of God’s world and everything in it. So start acting like that’s who you really are.

Feed the hungry with that food you’re not eating, bring the homeless to homes, cover the naked, work with your families to make everyone’s lives better. I’m not just talking about material things, either, though that’s a place to start. The text says feed the hungry. Now, that’s necessary, and a good place to start, but it’s also easy. The youth group has provided us a way to do that this week—and there’s a grocery cart always out there for every other week—which is fantastic. It’s great to be reminded of those who are hungry as we indulge in our Super Bowl parties today. The text calls us to do more, however. We have to stop pointing the finger at one another, stop speaking evil, and loosen the yoke of everyone—yokes, those long, wooden beams that weigh people down with their burdens.

We need to work with our families, and not hide from them. We need to be a steward of all we have—a caretaker of everything we’ve been given. We have to spend time getting to know the people around us and developing and caring for those relationships with our time. We have to set ourselves out where we may brighten the world rather than hiding our insights and talents away where no one will bother us about them.

These themes are repeated throughout the Bible—in most of the prophets as well as the rest of our readings from today. The Psalmist says that it is well with those who deal generously and justly with what they have, and Jesus refers to the light of the world being no good if it is hidden underneath a bushel basket. For light to be any good, it must be used to brighten the world around it—it’s the same with salt. Salt isn’t any good for itself—you don’t salt salt. That doesn’t make any sense It’s only good when used in the world around it and gets connected with something else.

The same is true for us. Something interesting happens when we acknowledge that we are in fact connected to the lives and needs of others. We begin to care—we care about the burden that we find they are carrying. We might even do something about it…work to break those yokes, those burden-carriers, that are holding them down. In breaking their yokes, as it says in verse 6, we will end up getting rid of our own as well. We break every yoke because as it turns out, all of our yokes are connected, as are our burdens. Isaiah is a prophet of God. I’d say that he’s also a great proclaimer of sheer common sense. Think about it. If we worked to correct the imbalance in the world, all of our burdens become a little lighter. We would repair the breaches—the broken places—that have harmed our society, the gaping holes that get filled with guilt or crime or pain. By eliminating the cause of the problem, we eliminate the gaps of need that are desperately filled any way they can be, and we restore the world to a place that may now be lived in.

We have to be a little bit brave sometimes. It takes a lot of courage to say “I don’t know where you’re coming from, but I want to know.” That conversation has the potential to open us to a whole new set of people who aren’t like us—except perhaps that they also are made in God’s image and live in God’s world. When we humble ourselves in truth rather than just in appearance, when we move from proper procedure to faithful living and decide to care for whoever may be hurting however we can—the hungry, the sick, the captives, the wounded, the grieving—that is when we live into who we are as salt of the earth and light of the world, when our light does shine like the noonday, and the world we live in is made a little more whole. Amen.