Sermon, Nov 30, 2008; Advent 1, B

The sermon this weekend is so simple it can be said in one sentence. So, listen up! Here it is: "IF YOU ARE FEELING DISTANT FROM GOD, MAYBE EVEN ABANDONED BY GOD, AND YOU WANT TO DRAW NEARER, THEN START DOING NICE THINGS FOR OTHERS." That's it. That's what's being taught. Let me show you how.

 

Both our first reading from Isaiah and the reading from Mark's Gospel are meditations on God's ABSENCE. Had you noticed that? Isaiah prays for Him to "Return." Isaiah and the people of Judah at the time when that poem was written, felt like God had abandoned them. They felt alone and deserted.

 

In Mark's Gospel, Jesus compares God to a man who has "left on a trip abroad," and no one knows when he's coming back.

 

The thing to notice in both readings is that NO ONE FELT CLOSE TO GOD. They felt so alone and so deserted. In Isaiah's time, the nation had been defeated; in Jesus' time it was occupied by enemy troops, and was about to be crushed. No one knew when it would happen or what would trigger it, but they knew their days were numbered, and they felt helpless and deserted.

 

Have YOU ever felt abandoned by God? Have you ever felt so distant from God that you felt there was no hope? Now, we aren't talking about theological anthropology, here....we know that God is everywhere, that, in the words of the Psalmist, "the entire earth is full of the Glory of God," and that "if we go to the furthest limits of the seas, or even to the netherworld, GOD IS THERE!" No, we aren't talking "theology," we are talking of "psychology." Have you ever FELT abandoned by God? Alone. Totally alone. ? The word "psyche" (the root of psychology) is the word for "soul" in Greek. Our souls can feel abandoned. It's the nature of fear and despair. And, anyone who has felt it, can tell you it isn't pleasant. Just as in a crowd of people, you can feel very cut off and alone, so we can, in a world filled with God's Presence, feel cut off from God. NOR are we talking the "blame game"–well, you feel abandoned by God because YOU abandoned HIM...HE didn't abandon YOU. That may or may not be true...there are times we feel "cut off" just because we are in a "cut off" place in our lives, that has nothing to do with our sinfulness or lack of it. We can feel abandoned, and cut off, and alone in the universe for any number of reasons. And Isaiah KNOWS THAT FEELING. So does Jesus. They are able to articulate for the people exactly what the people are feeling, themselves. Psychologically, what they see in the people they are dealing with is "depression." In both readings we see this. Isaiah faces a depressed people; so does Jesus. What's their advice?

 

Both Isaiah and Jesus have the same remedy...the only remedy known to humanity. Isaiah says, "Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of your ways." Jesus says, Don't let the returning master "find you sleeping," i.e. don't be lazy, but be busy doing good things!

 

In other words, the way to feel closer to God, the way to draw near to Him, the way to bridge all distance between Heaven and earth, between the heart of God and your heart is to care for the people He's put in your life. "Love your neighbor" is the path to "Loving God with your heart, mind, soul and strength." There is no other path. Christ put it: "I am the way." And what does it mean to live "in Christ?" It means to "turn the other cheek," "to go the extra mile," to "forgive 70 times 70 times," it means to be "meek, and poor in spirit, and understanding, and seeking goodness for the earth, making peace and reconciliation. It means leaving your gift at the altar when you remember you've offended someone, because their feelings are so important that they take precedence over the sacrifice to God. It means dining with lepers and prostitutes and lifting the weak. It means selling abundance and giving to the poor. How do we summarize it? It means being a "decent human being."

 

I remember hearing a lecture from Karl Menninger, the renown psychiatrist in Topeka, Kansas nearly 40 years ago. I no longer remember his topic, or anything he said during his lecture, but I do remember the question and answer period that followed, for a woman in the audience rose and asked him, in a faltering voice, "Dr. Menninger, what would you recommend for a person who has lost all sense of purpose, who wakes up every day, feeling meaningless and pointless, and on the edge of collapse into despair? Would you recommend "daily psychoanalysis?" Would that person have to move into the hospital? There was a hush in the room, for we all could tell from the desperation in her voice that she was speaking of herself. And Dr. Menninger, that great, great scholar and human being, paused, and looked her directly in the eye, and said, "I'm sorry, I didn't get your first name." She said her name...maybe it was Mary, I no longer remember for sure. Anyway, Dr. Menninger continued in the softest, kindest voice I've ever heard a doctor use, and he said: "Mary, I most certainly would NOT recommend long expensive therapy. It isn't necessary. The person you describe could be any of us at one time or another. I would suggest to your friend that she get out of her chair, walk out her door, go to the other side of the tracks and help someone who needs her help. That will take care of it."

 

In that short response, he summarized the teaching of the Bible.

 

Now, why do you suppose we begin our New Church Year with readings that speak of the ABSENCE of God, or at least our "feeling" that God is distant? The Church year begins there BECAUSE WE ARE SO OFTEN IN THAT VERY SPOT! And that is the spot the world was in  when God sent His Christ to embody the path...the WAY. This season builds toward the celebration of the feast of Christmas, the memory that God bridged all "distance," to stand in our shoes and know our pain, and through it all, to open us–in a new and profound way–to Intimacy with God, Himself.

 

Today, we are told what to do and how to do it. In Holy Communion the Eternal God will come to each of us, and touch us in body, mind and soul. May our lives be, then, spent in service of all humanity, so that we will be beacons that point to the WAY ... the only way to meaning, in a world that needs that light so desperately. And may God bless you all. +

Sermon for Nov. 16, 2008, 33rd in OT, cycle A

And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth!" How's THAT for Good News?

 

How do you think we should approach this gospel passage? Do you think we should give it a "capitalistic" reading? If God allowed you to be born into the Carnegie family, you should, by the time you die, own MicroSoft, too? Does that sound like a sensible God to you?

 

Well, the same is true, only psychologically, if you approach it as a treatise on personality gifts instead of financial gifts. Is it metaphorically saying that if God gave you an easy sense of humor that you should be Don Rickles or Phyllis Diller by the time you die? Does that sound like a sensible God to you?

 

Isn't it the same thing, only spiritually, if we say that God has given us some gifts of service, and if we haven't developed them to the full extent of our ability by the time we die that we'll be cast out on the cosmic garbage heap? If you ever served as a room mother, you had better look like Mother Theresa by the time you die? Does this sound like a sensible God speaking to you?

 

So, how should we REALLY understand it? If we don't use it as a cosmic "guilt trip" how do we understand this Gospel passage? How often has "Heaven" been held in front of us like a carrot before a donkey, to get us motivated? Is that what Heaven is about? Motivation? How often has religion been presented to you as a "cosmic insurance policy?" Where you pay the premium here to get the benefits later? Or a "cosmic savings plan" where you deposit a good deed and a prayer here to reap the interest there? We have to ask ourselves, "Is THAT what God is about?"

 

I don't know about you, but I don't like those approaches. They're familiar, yes. Too familiar, almost! We've all heard them, been threatened with them. It has come to sound like "Tradition" with a capital "T!" But is it what we should understand in this text and in others like it?

 

I went to commentaries this week–hoping to find something different. But there wasn't anything. They all say things like, "we are coming to the end of the Church year, and the readings focus on the end of the world, and they take on an apocalyptic flavor as the demand is placed."

 

But what demand? Didn't Christ, himself, say, "Take my yoke upon your shoulders, for my yoke is easy, and my burden light, and you will find rest for your souls?" Didn't we hear him two weeks ago condemning some religious folk for putting heavy burdens on people's shoulders and not lifting a finger to lighten them.....to make them as "light" as "his yoke?"

 

I frankly admit, I don't know how this Gospel should be understood...but I have a strong feeling (and after over half a life spent studying the text you "get" these "feelings...") that a "guilt-trip" reading of the text is a poor reading.

 

Let me suggest something else. I don't know if it will "fly" for you, or not, but let's give it a shot. The last fellow to come before the master has this to say: "I knew you were a hard man." And there, I think, is the rub. HE DIDN'T KNOW THE MASTER AT ALL! And that was probably his trouble all along...he operated out of fear...fear he'd lose what had been given him. And his life, lived in fear, couldn't develop freely and fully.  The other two, we don't know much about. The text doesn't disclose anything about them. But, I think from the grammar of the text, we can assume that they are the opposite of the fearful man who does nothing. They feel a wonderful freedom in their lives to live and love and grow. They take risks. They might lose, but they might win! And life was challenge and fun. Whereas, the poor fearful fellow missed the beauty, missed the challenge, missed the fun of existence for fear he'd botch it!

 

This is an interesting lesson, I think, for it tells us exactly what we learned on the first page of the Bible! We are God's children...formed from His heart! He is madly in love with us! We can trust him to laugh with us if we lose and celebrate with us when we win...but we have freedom to live before Him in justice.

 

The saddest thing is for a Christian to come to the end of life's journey only to realize that they didn't ever know the Master. They lived in fear of judgment, when the Master was offering lots and lots of love.

 

You live before a God who loves you so desperately, he'd rather DIE than give you up! You're not going to be thrown onto the trash heap of the cosmos! You don't have to worry about that. What we need to work at is becoming the loving, caring people we've been created to be!

 

How many of us, though, live in fear that the universe will be stingy? We act as if there will be a "run on the bank of forgiveness" tomorrow, and we hoard it! We refuse to say to our spouses, our children, our co-workers, our friends: "It's OK, don't worry about it. I forgive you." Think how often we could use the three magic words "I love you," and don't. We bury them, thinking I guess, that we'll save them for the day we REALLY need them. Today's Gospel assures us that it is in "sharing those sorts of words" that they GROW! It's in giving love that we create more. It's in forgiving one person that we increase forgiveness and tolerance on the earth.

 

Today's Gospel is meant, I think, to be taken ironically–like Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal." It's presenting us with a goofy view of religion and life that grows out of a goofy idea of God. But in the background chapters of Matthew's gospel are the clues for assuring us that the God before whom we stand is "emmanuel," WITH US, not against us. That God will have us with him if we love him and live freely or fear him and live partially. But, when we see all the possibility we have...and the Love that is forever with us...why in heaven's name would we want to be fearful and only live this wonderful, beautiful and terrifying existence in a partial way?

 

My prayer for each of us is that as we receive our spiritual strength this week at the table of the Prince of Peace and the Author of all Love that we will gain the strength we need to be extravagant with our kindness, our forgiveness, our love this week...so that kindness, forgiveness and love may eventually embrace us all. And may God bless you all. +