Cleaning House

The Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

A sermon based on Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32; Psalm 25:1-9; and Matthew 21:23-32

In the name of Jesus; amen.

Slowly, but surely I have begun the process of deep cleaning my house, what most people might refer to as “Spring Cleaning.” I actually prefer to do it now, right before the holiday season. Everything will get cleaned, or put away, or thrown out. I go through drawers and cabinets, behind furniture, under beds; every nook and cranny will get cleaned out.

I started this past Friday. The house is in desperate shape, but I have a plan of action: one room at a time. Usually I would begin with common areas like the play room or the kitchen or the dining / living room. But this Friday I cleaned my bedroom. Usually the bedroom, mine at least, is last on the list. It becomes the collector of things and never gets dusted because by the time I reach the bedroom all I want to do is sleep.

There is a peace that comes from cleaning. I slept so well on Friday night after I was done. It felt as though my soul had been washed and dried in a warm dryer or out on the line on a bright sunny spring day.

When I talked to my brother on Saturday I told him about cleaning my bedroom and how it made me feel. He reminded me that our external circumstances usually affect our internal circumstances and vice versa.

There is a theme to this week’s readings and that is the theme of repentance. Theologian Daniel Clendenin says that “repentance is central to life rather than peripheral. It’s essential rather than dispensable, obligatory and not optional. And contrary to modern misconceptions, when done well, repentance is entirely life-giving rather than death-dealing. Repentance is a movement toward health and wholeness rather than a descent into repression and self-recrimination.”

I have known for some time now that cleaning up my surroundings would make me feel better and repentance is like that too. Repentance, literally turning back to God, is like cleaning house. It can be a long and tiring task, but it puts us right with God.

The chief priests and the elders of the people were upset with Jesus when he told them that the tax collectors and the prostitutes were going to the kingdom of heaven ahead of them. They believed that their houses were clean and that they had less need for repenting.

But anyone who keeps house knows that there is always something that needs to be done. Dishes, laundry, the bed all have to be done on a regular basis or your house will start to look like mine.

As Christians there are just some things that we must do to keep right with God. God will always be right with us; loving us, caring for us, yearning for us, but we have to live lives of consistent prayer, and worship, and giving, and repentance.

Ezekiel’s message in our first reading warns the people that their transgressions will cause them to die. We can read into this literally because sometimes the wrong we do causes death, but living with our transgressions means living apart from God and that is a much worse kind of death.

As I swept under my bed on Friday the dust and pet fur began to make me cough and sneeze. The dirt literally hurt me. I was living with stuff that hurt me. Sweeping it up and throwing it out was actually good for my health physically and emotionally.

Repentance is our way of sweeping up the dirt from our spiritual lives. When we ask for forgiveness we are putting the trash out on the curb, trusting that God is going to come by and pick it up and get rid of it.

When the room was clean I put a brand new bed set on the bed. New pillows, new sheets, a new comforter now adorn my bed. When we repent and let God take away our sin we make room for something new to happen in our lives: something soft and warm; something comforting and beautiful.

Ezekiel puts it this way, speaking for God he says: “Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!”

Repentance renews us because it gives God a chance to enter into us and live through us. It’s why we confess our sins and hear the words of forgiveness every Sunday, so that we have a new heart and a new spirit before we enter into worship with God.

But it is not a once a week activity. If you save all the repentance for Sundays before church the work will pile up. Make it a constant in your lives, turning to God in all things.

The psalmist writes: “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. My God I put my trust in you…Remember, O LORD, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting. Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; remember me according to your steadfast love and for the sake of your goodness, O LORD.”

Lift up your souls daily, trusting in God. God will not forget you. Turn to God in every moment, God will always be there in goodness and steadfast love for you.

Amen.

Ridiculous Equality and Fair Trade

The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost

Editor's note: There are several links in this sermon that I would invite you to check out. Lutheran World Relief is an organization that continues to endeavor to do justice in this world. It is also a way for ordinary people to do something simple and easy to make a real change in the lives of people who suffer throughout the world.

A Sermon based on Matthew 20:1-16

In the name of Jesus; amen.

This past weekend several of us took turns at the Harvest Moon Festival selling Fair Trade crafts. I’ve explained it before as being the idea that people get paid a fair wage for the work that they do.

We also asked people to sign letters to all the grocery stores in Naugatuck asking that they offer more Fair Trade products in their stores. Some signed the letter and some didn’t.

I explained to one man what fair trade was all about using the example of coffee growers who get paid very little for their labor by big corporations. Before he was willing to sign the letter he wanted to know if it would drive up the cost of coffee to the consumer.

It seems ironic to me that the gospel for today is a story about fair wages when what we did this weekend was also about helping people receive fair wages for their work. People who get up at sunrise and work hard all day should be able to make enough money to feed, clothe, and house their families, but many of them do not. And I’m not just talking about people in 3rd world nations or some place far away. There are people who live right here in Naugatuck who know what living like that is. And more people are struggling with the current economy.

People deserve what’s fair; children shouldn’t starve, no one should go without decent clothes, and no one should have to decide between paying their rent or getting the medication they need.
But not only that, people should have the ability to live their lives with joy; to have time to enjoy the gifts of family, friends, and laughter without worrying about money.

Sarah Jessica Parker, who played Carrie on the show, Sex and the City, designed a clothing line where no one item costs more than $20. Her motto is “Fashion is not a luxury.” Her concept is that women should be able to feel good and look good in their clothes no matter what their income.

It isn’t always enough to have a roof over your head, food to eat, and something to wear.

But life, as I tell my 9 yr old, isn’t always fair.

Last week I told you all that God always gives us what we need. We don’t always understand the gift, or how to use it, or how to share it. People go without because, by nature, we are wasteful and hoard what we get.

Well, this week I want to tell you the God always does the right thing, even if we don’t always understand or agree.

In the parable that Jesus tells the workers who worked all day were upset when they received the same amount of pay as the workers who had only labored for a short time. One way to interpret their anger is that they were upset that those who had worked less time received the same amount as they did. They thought that was unfair.

Another way to interpret their ire is to imagine that they were upset because they didn’t get more.

They watched as those who had worked less time received what they were expecting and believed that since they had worked so many more hours that they should get even more pay.

But God, like the landowner, always does what is right. God has a ridiculous sense of equality when we measure by human standards. And by human standards this ridiculous sense of equality seems unfair.

Jesus tells this parable about the kingdom of heaven. And while it might be hard for some to believe that those who join the faith later in life deserve the same nice room in heaven as they, lifetime Christians will get, this parable is about more than the afterlife.

God’s ridiculous sense of equality means that each person has the same value no matter who or what they are. And while it isn’t always easy to translate that into the real world that we live in on a day to day basis, God’s truth, ridiculous as it may seem, calls us to be workers in the kingdom of this world as if it were the kingdom of the next.

Something else happened at the harvest Moon Fair. Our brothers and sisters at Immanuel took on the theme of world hunger. Part of their booth was dedicated to writing letters to our political representatives asking them to pass legislation that would put an end to hunger throughout the world.

It took me until the end of Saturday night to get my two letters written (and I wanted to write 3), but the fact of the matter is that we are not helpless or incapable of doing the things that God calls us to do. Our current president once said that he was the decider, but God is the true decider and it is God’s decisions that should fashion our lives. God’s fashion is not a luxury; it is a gift that we are called to put on and feel good and look good in.

It is time to get dressed in the baptismal garments that we have been given and wear them for the world to see.

Amen.

The Serpent and the Cross

Holy Cross Year A 2008

A sermon based on Numbers 21:4b-9; 1 Corinthians 1:18-24; and John 3:13-17

In the name of Jesus; amen.

God always gives us what we need. Sometimes we get more than we bargain for; as Mother Teresa once said: “I know God won’t give me anymore than I can handle; I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.”

God always gives us what we need, but sometimes we can’t see it that way. People often like to explain the bad things that happen to others this way: “It’s all part of God’s plan.”

This doesn’t always bring comfort. It can be hard to believe or trust in a God who seems to plan for us to suffer.

Almost a year ago I asked you all to pray for one of my brother’s friends who was dying of breast cancer and then did die right between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

At the funeral, the preacher said that he knew that people were struggling with why Karen had to die. Was it really a part of God’s plan that she leave behind her devoted husband, 2 young daughters, and all her family and friends? Take comfort he said, in knowing that Karen now understood God’s greater plan even if we couldn’t understand it.

God always gives us what we need, but people do go without. People live in cardboard boxes, children starve in the streets, and people die because they can’t get the medical treatment they need or deserve.

But God ensures that there are enough resources in creation for everyone to have what they need. Sometimes, more often than not, we just don’t know how to share. And with this economy it is easy to want to hoard and not want to give more to those with less.

God always gives us what we need, but sometimes we grow impatient and tired of what we do have. The Israelites in the wilderness grew impatient with their seemingly endless wandering through the dessert and the manna that they had once been overly grateful for now seemed tasteless and boring.

And they began to complain. The second commandment tells us that cursing is taking the Lord’s name in vain. But complaining, well, that’s taking the Lord’s promise in vain.

And the complaining brought poisonous snakes out from their hiding places and they did just what God had cursed them to do when he caught the serpent in the garden with Adam and Eve. They struck at the heels of the people and the people died. (Genesis 3:15)

The people died from complaining; from taking the Lord’s promise in vain.

But God always gives us exactly what we need.
In this case God had Moses make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Each time the people were bitten they had only to look at it and be healed.

God always gives us what we need, but sometimes understanding the big picture of God’s plan seems illogical, or crazy, or foolish. Sometimes it is hard to open our eyes to see the thing right in front of us and experience its healing power.

God always gives us what we need, but what do we look to for healing and satisfaction?

Today we read that verse from John, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

God gave him to us and stuck him up on a pole with a cross bar so that we may look at him and live.

The bronze serpent became a symbol for medical workers, those who care for our physical selves, but the Son on the cross has become even more than a symbol of healing – he is healing – and life giving.

God turns instruments of death into the instruments that save us; not just in the after life, but in this life right now.

Look at the cross, beyond the symbol to the act of it – it puts everything back together again. It gives us everything that we need:

The strength to carry on even when there is too much to do
The promise that God’s plan does make sense even if we can’t understand it;
The will to share our resources with those who have none;
The bread from heaven, which is the body of Christ, his dear son, and our savior.

Look to the cross. Amen.

Community

The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost Year A

A sermon based on Ezekiel 33:7-11; Romans 13:8-14; and Mathew 18:15-20

In the name of Jesus; amen.

Jesus was once asked what the greatest commandment was. His answer was “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22)

The two commandments are interconnected and intertwined. You cannot have one with out the other; you cannot love God and not love your neighbor. The man who asked the question then asked who his neighbor was and Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan. This is a story about 2 men; one man the crowd would have not cared for at all: a Samaritan. The other man was a person in great need.

Loving our neighbor means loving even those we don’t like or have the worst opinion of and loving those who are in the greatest of need.

You can’t show love for your neighbor without also loving God. When we love others we also love God. Atheists might disagree, but when we care for someone else we are also caring for God.

Not long ago letters that were written by Mother Teresa were published where she writes about a deep struggle she experienced with her faith. She often felt the absence of God in her life, but she knew that in loving the people of Calcutta, India she was also loving God and it kept her going in her work.

Commandments are not simple rules or guidelines that God wants us to follow to make us good people. And while the word commandment is often translated: law, the commandments are much more than laws we are supposed to follow.

We know that Jesus saved us through his death on the cross and that God’s grace was the reason Jesus would do this. We can never do enough on our own to earn our salvation, no matter how good we try to be, but the commandments are a gift of grace that help us to live the life that God intends and wants for us.

Our readings for today offer guidelines of the ways God would have us live our lives; not just for our own sakes, but for the sake of the whole community.

Ezekiel is appointed by God to remind the people to follow God’s word and turn from their wickedness. The Hebrew Scriptures are full of the stories of Israel’s wickedness and how they turned away from God’s desires for them. This turning away brought down punishment and disaster on the whole community.

Living apart from God and God’s word brought about physical suffering and death in these ancient stories.

As we approach another anniversary of 9/11 and remember the devastation of hurricane Katrina as other storms batter our coastlines we can fall into a terrible trap of believing that God was punishing us for our wickedness and sin, but to do that would be to uplift a theology that misses the point of God and our relationship with God.

How we love God and how we love our neighbor can either build up or destroy a community. How we care for one another, even if that requires tough love, can lift up or tear apart a community.

Paul tells us that “the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Then he tells us to wake up and smell the coffee; recognizing what time it is: time to put aside the unimportant desires of the self and instead live wearing the armor of light.

We are to act as a public community, where the things we do are public. Where the things we do in private are as honorable as the things we do in public.

Jesus’ words are similar: we are to confront, with love, the things and the people who hurt us, not for our own sakes, but for the sake of the whole community.

God values each and every one of us as individuals. We are all precious and Jesus tells us that God has every hair on our heads counted. But we were made for community. It is why God didn’t just make one human but two in the beginning and it is why God gave us the gift of church… so that we could live in community.

Love God, love neighbor – the whole of scripture can be interpreted into these four words with only one addition:

God loves us and this is why we were sent the prophets, and the psalmists, and the evangelists, and Jesus, so that we would know just how deep that love goes. And these commandments- these gifts- offer us a way of experiencing that love the way God intended for us to experience it.

Love God, love neighbor- because God loves us.

Amen.