Do Not Worry (Feb 27 2011)

Homily:  Yr A Proper 8, Feb 27 2011, Huntley

Readings:  Isaiah 49:8-16a; Ps 131; 1 Cor 4:1-5; Mt 6:24-34

"Do not worry"

I have a confession to make.  Sometimes I find it a challenge to take the Sunday readings and gospel and figure out how to make them relevant for us today.  Jesus was after all, speaking to people of a different era, living in a different culture some 2000 years ago. 

But not today.  In today’s gospel it is as if Jesus is speaking directly to us, to our time and place.  “Do not worry,” Jesus says.  And he’s speaking to us.  There’s a lot of worrying going on in our world, in our community.  So much so that one in nine of us will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at some point in our lives.  It is the most common of all mental illnesses in Canada.  We worry a lot, to the point where our worrying can overcome us.  Not only, as our gospel reminds us, can worrying not add a single hour to our lives, but it actually has the opposite effect.  Excessive worrying is a risk factor for heart disease, suppression of the immune system, digestive problems and short term memory loss.

What’s going on here?  Why do we worry so much?  It’s not because we’re bad people.  In fact if anything it’s the opposite.  We want good things in our lives, we want good things for those that we love, for our families and friends.  Parents worry about their children not because they’re bad parents, but because they’re good parents.  But somehow, we’re afraid that we may not get all these good things that we want in our lives and the lives of those around us, and so we worry.  Where are we to turn?

Martin Luther once said that a god is that to which we look for all good and in which we find refuge in every time of need.  That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself, says Luther, is really your god.

What do we trust to provide us with the good things of life?  For many of us in our world today, we turn to money.  We trust that by accumulating wealth and material possessions and earning power, we will be able to provide ourselves and our families with the good things of life.

This week I was helping my daughter Michelle pick Grade 11 courses for next year.  In order to help guide the selection, the school provides a web site with various questionnaires that you can fill out that will help you narrow in on what courses you should select.  So we started to go through the web site, and one of the first questions was the following:  How much money do you want to make when you start to work?

Our society trusts in money to give us the good things of life.  In Canada we spend over $7 Billion a year on lottery tickets.  That’s roughly the same as the total amount of charitable donations each year in Canada.  It works out to over $200 per person.  And why do we buy lottery tickets?  Well, you’ve seen the ads on TV.  It’s because if we get lucky and win, we can have all those good things that we wish for.

We trust in wealth to get us the good things of life.  But let me let you in on a little secret.  It’s not working for us.  We live in one of the wealthiest communities in this city, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, at a time when there is more wealth in the world than there ever has been in history.  And still, we worry, if the statistics are to be believed, we worry more than ever.  What’s going on?

Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Note what Jesus is not saying here.  He’s not saying that we don’t need stuff.  We do need things, we do need food and clothing and shelter and so on.  God knows that we need these things.  And Jesus is not saying that wealth is a bad thing.  He knows that we use money to pay for food, there’s nothing wrong with that.

But the question he’s asking is, where do you put your trust?  Who or what are you willing to serve?  Who or where do you turn for the good things of life?  Do you turn to God or to wealth?

It’s a choice between two worlds, the world of scarcity and the world of abundance.

  

Let me try to illustrate.  Suppose we believe that wealth can supply our needs.  Then having this $20 bill is a good thing.  I can buy stuff with it. But notice that one of the characteristics of this $20 bill is that if I have it, you don’t.  And that’s good for me, because if there’s something that I need or want that costs $20, I’m going to get and you’re not.  You see, having money as our priority sets us up as competitors.  And it sets us up as competitors, competing in a world of scarcity, where there’s not enough for everyone to have everything they want.  And if that’s the case, I start to worry about my competitors, and I start to worry about not getting enough.

However, suppose I trust not money, but suppose I trust God to provide me with the good things of life.  And suppose that by trusting in God and entering into relationship with him, I receive, for example, the gift of peace.  I become a more peaceful person, living in harmony with others, worrying less.  Tell me, how does that affect you?  Do you get less peace because I have more of it?  Not at all, God still has lots of peace to give you, and my peace is something that I can share with you.  In God’s world, when I have something, you get more of it too.  This is abundance, not scarcity.  When I trust God to give me the good things of life, the truly good things of life, things like peace, love, joy and compassion, then not only do I receive them, but you get them too!

Sure, sure, some of you are thinking.  Peace and love are all good, but I’ve still have to eat!  I still need a house to live in.  I still want a pension for my retirement.

That’s true.  And that’s exactly where Jesus makes us a promise, one of the most incredible promises that has ever been made.  God knows you need that other stuff, he tells us, food and clothes and so on.

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Make your priority the kingdom of God, put your trust in God, act justly and the rest will be taken care of.

This is the promise that Jesus gives us in today’s gospel.  Do we believe it?

No, we don’t believe it.  It sounds too good to be true.  

But are you really ready to give up on such an amazing promise so easily, without even giving it a try?  Do you want to stay in the world of scarcity and competition, do you really want to keep turning to wealth as your provider, and worrying about whether that’s going to work?

Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well.

Hard to believe?  Don’t think it’s realistic?  Then, here’s the challenge I’m giving you this week.  Give it a try.  For this one week, starting today, make the things of God your priority.  Put your trust in God, seek to know him, strive for righteousness, enter into relationship with him, in prayer, in action.  And see how it goes.  See whether you can learn to have faith in God and worry less.  See whether you get more or less of the good things of life by seeking God in your life.  See whether your understanding of what the good things are changes over the course of the week.

It is the greatest promise that we’ve ever been given.  Give it a try this week.  And then I want you to report back.  Send me an email, give me a phone call.  Comment on this blog.  Tell me what it’s like to trust in God’s promise, to see the world through eyes of abundance and not scarcity.  Maybe it will be hard.  Maybe it will be easy.  Maybe it will make a difference in your life, maybe it won’t.

You’ll never know until you give it a try.

Amen.

Love Your Enemies (Feb 20, 2011)

Homily:  Yr A Proper 7, Feb 20 2011, Huntley

Readings:  Lev 19: 1-2,9-18; Ps 119:33-40; 1 Cor 3:10-11, 16-23; Mt 5:38-48

"Love your enemies"

Today’s gospel passage is one of the most important of all Jesus’ teachings.  The injunction to “love your enemy” is perhaps the most radical thing that Jesus ever said. It has changed the course of human history.  It inspired Mahatma Gandhi in the struggle to liberate India from British rule in the 1940’s.  It was the cornerstone of Martin Luther King Jr’s campaign for civil rights in the United States in the 1960’s.  And we hear echoes of it today in the peaceful demonstrations that continue in Egypt and throughout the Middle East.  However refusing to resist an evildoer and loving your enemy can be costly.   Jesus, Gandhi and King were all put to death, and so were four demonstrators in Bahrain just three days ago.

As I looked at our texts this past week, I was struck by the similarity of both the first statement and the last statement, and I think that together they serve as the foundation for all that comes in between.  Our Old Testament reading from Leviticus begins with God telling the people through Moses that “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”  And at the end of today’s gospel, Jesus concludes by saying much the same thing:  “You shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Back in the 1990’s, when Michael Jordan was the best basketball player in the world, Gatorade put out a commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0AGiq9j_Ak)  which showed children playing basketball, interspersed with highlight clips of Michael Jordan’s best moments, and of Jordan actually coming to the playground to play basketball with the kids.  And the refrain of the song that played throughout the commercial, and the tag line that Gatorade used for years afterwards was very simple:  “Be like Mike”.

Well, if the marketing people were going to come up with a tag line for today’s gospel, and even for the whole of Jesus Sermon on the Mount, it would probably read “Be like God”.

“You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.”  The words tell us something about who we are and they hold out a vision for what we are becoming and who we are meant to be.  We are to be like God.  And we shall be because of who God is and because of the relationship that we have with him.  As Paul tells the Corinthians in the second reading, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”  You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

Jesus says much the same thing at the end of today’s gospel reading.  “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Now this is one of those verses where the English translation can sometimes lead us astray.  Sometimes we think of perfect as getting 10 out of 10 on a test, or sometimes we think it means doing nothing wrong.  But the actual Greek word used in the gospel of Matthew is “telos”, and telos has much more the sense of “what something is for” or what it’s purpose is. 

Let me give you an example.   Think of an acorn.  Now what is in an acorn is for?  Well, an acorn is meant to grow into an oak tree.  That’s it’s purpose, the end for which it was created.  In Greek we would say that the telos of an acorn is to grow into an oak tree.  That’s the word Jesus is using when he says “Be perfect, therefore, as you heavenly Father is perfect.” Imagine, then, that we are like the acorn, and God is like the oak tree.

So what is our purpose?  Our purpose is to grow into the people that we were created to be.  And we are meant to be like God.  That’s the identity that we’re growing into.  That’s what Jesus means when he says “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  Jesus wants us to become that which we already are, albeit in embryonic form:  children of God, living in the kingdom of heaven.

What Jesus is giving us in today’s gospel, and in the Sermon on the Mount as a whole, is not so much a prescription for ethical living as it is a blessing and affirmation of who we are and a vision of who we are becoming.  Be like God.

But what is God like?  That would seem to be the next question wouldn’t it!  If we are to be like God, then what is God like?  Well, Jesus says, God is like this:  God makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  So you should do the same.  Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  Why?  Because that’s what God does, and you’re God’s children.

But that’s hard!  How can I love my enemies?  Is that humanly possible?  What would it look like in practice? Wouldn’t it be risky?  What does it mean for a human being to be like God?

  

Fortunately for us, we have an example of what it looks like for a human being to be like God.  Because God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, Jesus, to live among us.  If you want a model for what we’re growing into, we have the example of Jesus’ life among us, lived here on earth, recorded in the gospels.  Jesus is the model for us of what it looks like to love others, no matter whether those others are friends or foes, Pharisees or tax-collectors, family members or Roman soldiers.  Jesus had enemies, real enemies, enemies that eventually put him to death.  But even as the life drained from Jesus on the cross, he was able to love his enemies and pray for those who persecuted him, and ask God to forgive them.

That’s hard.  That sort of love for enemies may seem beyond our grasp.  Where do we even begin to put this into practice?

We begin with God’s love for us.  We begin by acknowledging and believing that we are who Jesus tells us we are, God’s children.  When we can begin to believe and accept and experience God’s love for us, just as we are, warts and all, when that becomes a reality in our lives, then we begin to respond, just as a flower opens when it feels the morning sun.   And as we open up and look around and see others, we realize that God loves them in the same way that he loves us.  And we begin to respond to the other not as an enemy, but as a brother or sister that we care for.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is both a blessing of who we are and a vision of who we are becoming.  It is therefore about identity, about who we are as children of God, and it is also about transformation and growth, a vision of the people we were created to be and how we are to grow into the identity that we’ve been blessed with.  And just as an acorn does not become an oak tree all on its own, but rather is nourished by water and soil and sun, we too will be nourished as we grow into our identity as children of God, nourished by God’s love which bathes us with both sun and rain.  It is God’s love working within us that enables us to love our neighbours, and even, eventually, our enemies.

Love has within it a redemptive power.  Love is healing and nourishing and creative. It is God’s love for us that gets us going and builds us up and works the sort of transformation in us that we are talking about.  And it is our love for others, including those we call our enemies, that begins that process of redemption in them as well.

You have heard it was said, “you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.”  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

Amen.

Salt and Light (Feb 6, 2011)

Homily:  Yr A Proper 5, Feb 6 2011, Christ Church Huntley

Readings:  Is 58:1-12; Ps 112; 1 Cor 2:1-16; Mt 5:13-20

You are the salt of the earth;  you are the light of the world

If you ever want to see moose, one of the best moose spotting places in the world is along Highway 60 as it runs through Algonquin Park in the month of May.  As the snow melts in the spring it leaves behind pools of salty water, salty because of the salt that has been spread on the highway during the winter.  And moose need salt!  During the winter months they become salt-depleted, and so in the spring they are attracted by the salt, and are nourished by it.  And if you drive this stretch of highway in the spring, you’re sure to see dozens of moose along the side of the road.

Salt is good stuff.  Salt not only makes things taste better, but it is essential for life.  Of course, these days we sometimes think of salt as bad, because we get too much of it in our diets.  But to the people that Jesus is speaking to in today’s gospel, salt is a wonderful thing.  Not only is it needed for human health, but in those days before refrigeration, it was also the best way to preserve food.  If you wanted to make sure that things don’t go bad, you add a little salt. 

You are the salt of the earth.  You are the salt that is nourishing, life-giving and brings out the good in things.  You are the light of the world.  Don’t hide under a basket.  Put your light on a stand where it gives light everyone.

Who, me?

Yes you.  You George, you’re the salt of the earth.  You Linda, you’re the light of the world.  You John and Sue and Mary, yes all of you.  Salt and light, every single one of you.

What’s your response when I tell you this?  When Jesus tells you this in today’s gospel?

I tried this out at home this week, away from church, in what you might call a normal setting.  As Jonathan and I were sitting having breakfast together one day this week, eating our bowls of cereal, I said to him in all seriousness, “Jonathan you are the salt of the earth.  You’re the one that brings life to people, who nourishes them, who brings out the good in things.  You’re the light of the world, so don’t hide your light, get out there and shine and bring light to others.”

At first he looked up at me to see if I was kidding, to see if I was setting him up for some kind of joke.  But when he realized that I was serious, he smiled.  I think he felt affirmed.  In that moment I think he grew just a little bit.

You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.  Jesus isn’t kidding, he’s not setting us up for something.  He’s serious.  He means it.  And he’s not talking about people in general.  He’s talking about you.

He’s not talking conditionally.  He doesn’t say if you do this and this and that then you will be salt and light.  He’s not asking a question.  He doesn’t say “would you like to be the salt and light of the world?”

No he’s telling you what you are, affirming what you are, confirming what God made you when he created you:  you are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.  Do you believe it?  Believe it.

Last week in our gospel, Jesus blessed us.  This week he is telling us who we are, affirming us in who we are.  This is your identity.  You are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world.  And out of that identity flows mission.  You are the light of the earth, so let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Now you might be wondering what are these good works that Jesus is talking about?  What does it mean to let our light shine before others?  I expect that the disciples who were surrounding Jesus were wondering the same thing.  And I expect that their first response was to think of the scribes and the Pharisees.  In Jewish society at that time, it was the scribes and the Pharisees who were considered to be the good people, the righteous people.  And their good works emphasized a scrupulous adherence to the purity laws and to religious observances, things like hand-washing, praying, fasting and so on.  Is that what Jesus is calling us to?

  

And Jesus, perhaps anticipating their thoughts, says to them, “no, your righteousness must be even greater than this, greater than the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees.  I want you to go beyond merely keeping the law and practicing religion.  Your good works, your righteousness must consist of those things that we’ve been talking about:  I want you to be peacemakers, I want you to practice mercy.  Be compassionate, practice forgiveness, do justice.

Look not to the righteousness of the Pharisees;  rather look to God’s words spoken through the prophet Isaiah which we heard in our Old Testament reading this morning:

“Is not this the fast that I choose:  to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house;  when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?  Then your light shall break forth like the dawn.”

You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.  So let your light shine before others.  How?  By acting justly and living compassionately.  By freeing those who are oppressed.  By offering food to the hungry and satisfying the needs of the afflicted.  That’s how your light will shine, that’s when your light shall break forth like the dawn, and you will give glory to your Father in heaven.

You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.  Yes, you.  Because if not you, then who?  Believe it and great things will happen, because it is through us that God acts in this world.  Each of us has our own way of shining.  Some will teach, some will help, some will travel far, some will stay near to home.  But when we all shine our light, the effect is more dazzling than the sunrise at dawn.

During these past 10 days, the young people of Egypt have come to believe that they are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  They have put their lives on the line in order to end oppression, to feed the poor, to bring peace and justice to their country.  Their actions have been strong and courageous, yet peaceful and compassionate.  Their light shines before us, and we pray for a just and peaceful outcome to their demonstrations.

Jesus says, “You are the salt of the earth.  You are the light of the world.  Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

Imagine what would happen if we really took this to heart, if we really believed what Jesus is telling us, if we stopped hiding our light and instead put it on the lampstand for all to see.  Imagine an end to injustice, an end to hunger, an end to oppression, imagine what things might start to look like, in our homes, in our community, in our country, in the world.

It is through you that God works in this world, doing infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.  You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world.

Amen.