Chasing Sainthood

Matthew 5:1-12

Today is a special Sunday in the life of the church—we’re celebrating All Saints’ Day today.  We Baptists are not overly observant when it comes to excessive High Holy Day celebrations, but today we join Christians all over the world to think about what sainthood means.

The concept of saints who have gone before is not new to the Christian community, and not, as some believe, the sole property of the Catholic tradition.  In fact, the definition has changed over the centuries.  Here’s how the church began marking the lives of saints:

In the first 300 years after Jesus lived on earth, a saint was someone who lost his or her life for the cause of Christ.  We know these folks as martyrs and their willingness to give up their lives for what they believed was the foundation of this fledgling movement called the Christian church.  Church father Ignatius said, “the blood of the martyrs was the seeds of the church.”

Around 300 it finally became cool to be a Christian and no one was getting killed for the cause of Christ anymore.  Thus, to be a saint during this time in history was pretty synonymous with being famous.  If you died a famous person and had enough money, a chapel would be built in your honor and people could come to your chapel, light a candle and pray to you—hoping of course that your success on earth would translate into a particularly close relationship with God, you know, up there.  For 1300 years that’s what it meant to be a saint.

Next, the Catholic Church put an official process of canonization—the process of naming a saint—into place.  This process must begin at least 5 years after a person’s death and involves a complicated investigation of a person’s life, approval by a panel of theologians and church leaders, and evidence that the person performed a miracle before and after his or her death.  That’s all!  This process remains in place today, but in the Protestant tradition we have adopted another idea of sainthood, one that came out of the Reformation.

When Martin Luther started causing trouble for the church and the Reformation began, the idea of praying to saints fell out of vogue among his group of radicals.  And so, the concept of sainthood changed again.  This time a saint became someone in your life whom you loved who had died.  Family members, like mothers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers, etc., who died and went to heaven before us were now known as saints—sort of like scouts who got to the end of the trip first and were saving us a spot. 

These days we speak of saints as those who came before us, whom we loved and who loved us, whose memories spur us on to faithful living and give us hope that we’ll encounter a friendly face or two on the other side of this life. 

The scripture text that frames our consideration of sainthood this morning is a familiar one—the Beatitudes, they are often called—a part of what we know as the Sermon on the Mount.  Picture this: Jesus has gained quite a following among the common folks.  Crowds gathered around to hear what he had to say.  His disciples, confused fishermen for the most part, were standing there watching, taking at least mental notes so they could remember later what Jesus said.  After all, they were all used to hearing lists of rules, instructions for how one would go about making God happy, being holy, maybe even achieving a status something like sainthood…. 

And so, Jesus spoke the Beatitudes—you remember how they go—“blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted….”  Really?  A recipe for sainthood?  Become all the things on this list and you’ll achieve platinum Christian status?

Robert Schuller thinks so.  Schuller, you might remember, was a popular televangelist, host of The Hour of Power, founder of the Crystal Cathedral, and prolific writer over the last forty years.  He wrote a book on the Beatitudes and called it The Be Happy Attitudes.  His point was, obviously, that Jesus was, in fact, giving us a list of things we needed to do to be holy—to be saintly, you might say on a day like today, when we’re celebrating All Saints’ Day.

While the disciples were certainly paying attention that day as Jesus preached and they clearly thought his words notable (they wrote them down fifty years later, so they must have made an impact the first time they heard them), I am not so sure that the Beatitudes are a list of how one might take the fast track to sainthood.  As one commentator on the text points out, “I’ve been around enough to see the merciful get trampled, the mourners commit suicide, the pure in heart walk away from God, and people who hunger and thirst for righteousness sometimes die of hunger and thirst.” (Mike Baughman, The Hardest Question).

Instead of a list of directions, I wonder if the Beatitudes weren’t just what the words say that they are: a blessing.  I wonder if Jesus didn’t look out over that crowd of hurting, oppressed, tired, hopeless people, and know that giving them yet another list to accomplish wouldn’t be much help to their desperation.  They were people longing for a life of following God—if they weren’t they wouldn’t have turned up in droves that day to hear what he had to say.  But life was hard, and circumstances were punishing.  They didn’t need more rules; they needed a blessing.

And so, to aid them in their quest for sainthood, for lives lived reflecting God’s grace and love, Jesus raised his voice and blessed them.

All of them.  The whole crowd.  In all of their desperation, poverty, powerlessness, pain…in their quest to live lives that mattered, to please God even with the limited resources and unlikely success they had, Jesus blessed them.

They were chasing sainthood, you see, even though the term in Christian practice hadn’t actually come into being yet.  They wanted to live lives that reflected God’s engaged relationship with all of humanity; they were chasing sainthood, and it was hard.

It’s easy to feel rather desperate about our own personal pursuits of sainthood, to think that we’ll have to be long gone before we ever have a shot at saintly status.  But if we listen to Jesus’ blessing today, we might begin to realize that chasing sainthood is part of who we are as Christ-followers.  And we’re living the life of saints, pointing people toward God, even here and now.  Even as we struggle.

So with Jesus’ blessing, we can redefine sainthood this morning, as something we do together, right here and now.

Consider this: the Greek word for saint, haggio, is used throughout the Bible only in its plural form.  In other words, nowhere in the Bible would you or I find a reference to St. Mark orSt. John orSt. Paul.  The only time we ever read the word “saint” it is in the plural form—referring the Christians as a group.  Remember some references in scripture? 

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus.  Ephesians 1:1; or, I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints.   Ephesians 1:15; or, I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of God.  Ephesians 3:17b-18.

I not sure what we were thinking, singling folks out like we have over the history of the church.   It seems that the scriptural concept of sainthood is always a sense of group identity—a concept we discover and live out with others.  In other words, to be a saint is to be part of a community—to live out the mandate of the gospel with friends and partners who spur us on to discover and embrace God’s work in our lives and in this world.

This is a new and problematic concept, then, if all the folks we regard as saints are dead.  This is what we generally understand a saint to be—someone who has lived a notable life and gone on.  We just sang, “For all the saints, who from their labors rest . . . .” 

But as I began to look at what the Bible says about saints I realized that the folks who are called saints in the New Testament not only form a group, but they are still alive and kicking.  Our modern conception of what a saint is: a martyr, a canonized VIP who has the ear of God, even a deceased loved one . . . these are ideas we’ve come up with—but not concepts we find in the Bible. 

Yes, we give thanks for those who have gone before us, we’re grateful for their examples and their faithfulness.  But it seems that the idea of what it means to be a saint it more immediate for us; it’s something we’d better attend to right here and now and not wait for the rosy memories of those who love us to reconstruct our witness after we’re gone.  Sainthood is a way of life, a way of living out our faith together, right now. 

If you are like me, you’re probably don’t think often about the details of medieval history, but I am betting that most of you remember who Johannes Gutenberg was.  Gutenberg lived in the 1300s inGermanyand he was one of those folks who was constantly coming up with the next great invention.  We remember him, of course, as the inventor of the printing press, and invention that totally revolutionized the church—by making the Bible accessible to common folk.

What most folks don’t know about Johannes Gutenberg, though, is that before his invention of the printing press, he tried one hare-brained scheme after another to make his living.  Truth be told, most of his business ventures were related to the church; he knew that people were desperate to forge some tangible connection to the holy, and he was determined to make a living by discovering ways to help people do just that.

While working as a goldsmith and inventing on the side, Gutenberg had an idea that manufacturing metal molds of letters which could fit into a frame might possibly have some potential as a lucrative invention.  He was anxious to try his idea, but he did not have the funds to create his new machine.  To make some quick start-up money, Gutenberg wracked his brain to think of something that would sell quickly. 

In the church inMainz, where he was living, he heard that there would be a festival in which relics from theHoly Landwould arrive and be on display.  He knew that people would flock from all over Europe to get a chance to see these holy relics—a fragment of bone from an apostle, a vial of dirt from the ground beneath the cross, a scrap of cloth from a shroud Jesus wore—whatever the relics were, they were holy objects that faithful people wanted just to get a glimpse of—to have some connection to the holy.

Here was the problem that Gutenberg thought he might solve: with the press of all those people who flocked from everywhere, it would be hours, days even, of waiting in line to get close to the relics.  And even upon getting close, chances are the crowd would prevent getting a good look at the holy relic.  Gutenberg thought if he could somehow provide a way for the pilgrims to see the relics, he might make enough income to build his printing press.

Gutenberg got busy then manufacturing small mirrors.  He mounted the mirrors on poles and sold them by the hundreds to the pilgrims, who, upon getting relatively close to the relics they wanted to see could raise their poles and look into their little mirrors, which would then be reflecting a clear view of the relic they longed to see.  As they gazed into their mirrors they would see then, just a little bit of the holy, enough to bolster their spirits and punctuate their long waits and their dismal lives with a little bit of the divine.

What does it mean to be a saint?  The word means, “God’s holy ones”, and I am thinking, knowing myself and knowing all of you, that if we’re going to be called saints the word certainly cannot mean that we are perfect people.  We’re called saints not because we’re particularly or exceptionally holy, but rather that we’re followers of a God who is holy.  Our lives, our sainthood, you see, is a reflection of the holiness of God. 

That’s what it means to be a saint—a living, breathing group of people whose lives reflect the goodness and grace and, yes, the holiness of God.  Maybe, like Gutenberg’s mirror on a stick, our reflections are distant, rather small and sometimes far away.  But as saints, when the world looks at us they should be able to see, even if only very faintly sometimes, a reflection of God.

Feel like you’re not making much progress in your efforts at chasing sainthood?  Well then, on this day, hear the blessing of Jesus, who looked out over the crowd on the hillside one day and saw a people heavily burdened by the life they lived.  They wanted to be reflections of God’s holiness, but they were carrying pain and desperation, hopelessness and a total lack of power.  In their efforts to chase sainthood they were stumbling, doubtful.

And Jesus blessed them.

It’s understandable this morning as we celebrate years of faithful commitment atCalvaryto think about all those who have gone before us, what they accomplished, how they lived, the legacy they left.  Thanks be to God for those amazing lives. 

But don’t forget they stumbled on their way to sainthood, too.  And from their eternal rest you can bet they are blessing us like Jesus did, encouraging us to remember that the work of sainthood is now!  Right here!  In this very group of people!

Don’t be intimidated by the expectations of those who have gone before.  We are the saints, living and breathing reflections of God’s love for this world.  We’re chasing, not special status for ourselves, but God’s biggest hopes and dreams for the whole world. 

And in our efforts, we are blessed.  Thanks be to God.

Amen.

 

 

Better Together: Follow Directions

Matthew 22:34-40

We’ve been listening for the past few weeks to passages from the Gospel of Matthew about Jesus tangling with the leaders of the Jewish community in Jerusalem.  Remember, in Matthew’s account of the way things went down the last week of Jesus’ life, Jesus was making his presence known all over town.  Today’s passage, also from Matthew chapter 22, is the final public conflict Jesus had, the argument that tipped the scales and sent the leaders of Jerusalem to Plan B, their plan to get rid of Jesus once and for all.

To understand better what is happening here at the end of Matthew 22, we must remember that the Roman government occupied Jerusalem and surrounding regions.  In order for Rome to exert control of the area, the Romans assigned a governor, who at the time happened to be a guy named Pontius Pilate.  After hundreds of years of domination, it was not the Jewish tradition to submit quietly to an occupation like this, but that’s what had slowly happened.  The Jewish high priest, Ciaphas, had established an alliance with Pilate; they worked together to insure each others’ interests. 

And Jesus, the radical upstart who had gained such a following among the average Jew around town, was not amused.  There was too much power concentrated in one place, and the end result of that trend was things like we talked about last week: crushing tax burdens; unfair legal systems; a whole class of people who struggled for day to day economic survival.  In this system, while life was hard for so many, there were a few—including those in power—for whom life was just fine. 

Great, really. 

And any voice that challenged the system was a voice that needed to be quieted before anybody got too upset.

Jesus was one of those voices.

Jesus’ adventures of this week began on the occasion of his entry into Jerusalem.   You remember that story, right?  Everyone was cheering Jesus on, waving palm branches, and calling him Messiah—Savior.  What you might not know is that that week when Jesus came into Jerusalem on the donkey was the very beginning of the celebration of Passover, one of the most holy weeks of the Jewish year.  Because of that holiday, the city of Jerusalem was bursting at the seams; its normal population of about 40,000 people had swelled to over 200,000 for the celebration.  To take advantage of the pilgrimage of people from all over the region, Pilate, the Roman governor had the custom of staging a military procession on the Western side of Jerusalem.  It was like a celebratory parade, but it was staged and timed to be sure that everyone there felt the display of power.  In full military dress, chariot and horses, a procession of military precision began and continued through the city.  The message was clear: I am in charge, you are my subjects, I have the power.

You recall, then, that on the Eastern, mountainous side of the city at the same exact time, there was Jesus.  He was also involved in a staged entrance to the city, but he wasn’t wearing armor.  And he also was not riding in a chariot, accompanied by impressive war horses, military regalia, or formations marching in precision.  It was just him, remember, on a donkey, making his way into the city and being cheered by a crowd—the crowd that chose specifically to attend this entry parade and not the other one, because they knew exactly what Jesus was up to.  Pilate and his parade were showing the power of the Roman establishment, of royal palaces and oppressive laws, of people oppressed by powers they could not overcome.  Jesus, on the other hand, was preaching a completely different message: that true power came from love of God and love of neighbor, that change can happen on a donkey to the sound of children singing, that there is no need for fancy trappings, only sincere hearts.  Two entries into the city, happening simultaneously.  Two completely different messages they sent to those who watched them.  And a sharp conflict of ideologies happening in those very public demonstrations.  With all the might of the Roman army and the joint power of the Jewish leaders, what possibly could have been so threatening about this one who talked constantly about a different way to live?

Two kingdoms were colliding, two very different views of how life should be lived.  And now that Jesus was in the big city with a clear influence on many people who had begun listening to his message, well, that felt threatening to all of those who held the power monopoly. 

You’ll remember that Jesus was everywhere: turning moneychangers’ tables over in the temple, telling radical stories about the Kingdom of God, and generally antagonizing the religious leaders, who over and over got embarrassed in front of the whole crowd as they tried to trick Jesus into saying something that would end his career as a celebrity once and for all.

The scripture we read this morning was the final public test.  The Pharisees put their heads together again and decided they would test him with a question to end all questions: they decided to ask him to tell the crowd what the most important commandment is—the one everybody had to obey or else. 

The religious leaders and also the people who were listening were very interested in rules and commandments; rules were the foundation of their faith practice.  And so, everyone (even the ones who didn’t support the Jewish leadership) would want to know what Jesus had to say about this question.

And Jesus answered, though I am quite sure he was annoyed.  “Love the Lord your God,” he said, and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

This sounded very good, how could they argue with an answer like that?  But the way Jesus meant it, it somehow stood in contrast to the list of laws the Jewish leaders required.  It was simple and clear, challenging and applicable to everyone.  And it was hard.  So hard.

The problem was that everyone trying to meet the standards of the Jewish leadership around town was struggling with the challenge of loveless law.  That is, there were rules, you know, and they had to be followed forever and always.  Even if the following of the rules hurt other people.

In a society in which everyone depended on everyone else, a ruthless rule following, while seemingly admirable, ended up not healing communities and deepening individual lives, but instead becoming a weapon by which some people were good and others were not good enough.  The adamant following of laws ended up creating a situation in which there was a loveless law—laws followed no matter what, just for the sake of following the laws.

Jesus wasn’t interested in an elaborate law if it wasn’t infused with love.  Instead, love was his law: to love God and to love your neighbor.

I am quite sure that all the people in Jerusalemwho heard Jesus that day felt overwhelmed by what they’d heard.  I know I do.  It must have seemed easier, in some ways, to have a whole list of behavioral rules to follow to the letter.  Love God?  Love your neighbor?  These are clear directions that are often way too hard to follow.  Way too hard.  Could Jesus have meant that we should try to do them?  Could really loving God and practically loving our neighbors actually change things?  Could following directions as simple and as radical as these really change the world?

So, here we are on stewardship Sunday.  Today is the day that, as a community of faith, we come together to offer our lives in the efforts we make as a church to follow Jesus’ directions. Coming together to share what we have and who we are is not a rule that you have to follow or else you’ll get kicked out.  It’s much bigger than that.  It’s a challenge during which you are called to dedicate your life…to give all that you have and all that you are to this effort of being the church in this time and place…because you believe with all that you are that this community of faith is a our corporate expression of following Jesus’ directions to love God and love our neighbors.

Like Jesus, we want to be people who live the law of love, a community that is structured and defined by radical love.  As Jesus told the Pharisees that day, every other rule or law hinges on the law of love.  It’s a foundation we’re building together.

This week while I was perusing Facebook, I saw a picture posted by some of my friends that reminded me of the directions Jesus gave.  It was the picture of a sign in the door of a Durham, NC, dry cleaner.  The sign reads: “If you are unemployed and need an outfit cleaned for an interview, we will clean it for free.”

In an interview with the owner he expressed sympathy for all of those looking for work, as he had been at one point.  Cleaning folks’ professional attire for free was an expression, he said, of “being a good neighbor.”

Indeed.

While I am not sure what the exact motivation of this business person was, I think this may, in fact, be a really good description of following directions.  Jesus’ directions.  There were not loveless laws…a list populated by so many things we have to do…or else.  Rather, Jesus was more about lawless love…that is, that our lives are ruled by love, not law, and it’s the standard of love that demands our response, ever and always.

Today as a community of faith we have the opportunity to make a commitment and participate in a cause larger than ourselves.  Together we are people who can live the radical witness of Jesus, who can be agents…not of a loveless law…but of a reality in which love is the main deciding factor of what we do and who we are.

Love God, love your neighbor.  These are truly the directions Jesus left for us.  The question for us this day is: will we follow the directions of Jesus?  Will we give our lives in service and love to God, and in the love of our neighbor?  These are hard things, standards to which most of the world does not subscribe.  Will we try it?  Will we commit to following Jesus’ directions or not?

As today is Stewardship Sunday, I get to finish my sermon today by giving you some directions.  They are not as simple as Jesus’, but I do think these directions are easier than loving God and loving our neighbors.  Who among us today has a smart phone?  May I ask you to pull it out (and we can pretend you weren’t checking email, etc., during the sermon?)?  Please pull it out and open the application that reads QR codes.

QR codes are those square codes (see one in your bulletin?) that apparently your smart phone can read.  And when you read such a code with your smart phone, the code will take you directly to the Calvary stewardship page.

Smart, huh?

To give you and me a chance to follow directions, I am going to give you a minute to scan that QR code and actually make a donation—it could be 5$–not all that much…but you will have followed directions to scan the code and make that donation.  Try it!

Aren’t we so technologically savvy?

If you don’t have a smart phone, or if you just think I am crazy, now would also be the time to open your stewardship brochure and fill out your pledge card.  Let’s do either one of those or both together now….

Clear, concise, easy to understand: when Jesus answered the Pharisees he was telling everyone what the basics were.  Follow directions, friends.  Love God, and love your neighbor.  That’s it.  It’s love without the law, a radical way of living in the world.  And Jesus the radical parade leader, was there to show them that there was another way to live.  Love God, love your neighbor.  Follow those directions and you’ve got it all covered.  All of it.

As a symbol of how we are better together when we join each other in following Jesus’ directions, we will have the opportunity to come forward and place on the altar the pledge cards we’ve filled out.  If you have already turned in your pledge card, no need to fill in another one, just bring your stewardship brochure up front to the altar.  These are financial commitments as part of our membership in this community of faith, of course.  But more than that, they are a symbol that we—together—are ready and willing to follow directions, to allow our lives to reflect this very high standard of loving God and loving our neighbor.

Do you think we can do it?  Do you think we can follow directions?

In the moments that follow we will bring our pledge cards to the altar, our corporate acknowledgement that we are better together, and that together we are determined to follow this Jesus who gave us the most difficult and wonderful directions: love God and love your neighbor.

Let us truly and tangibly do that now.

Amen.

Job Description

As we’re heading toward the end of the year, with job descriptions under review and evaluations beginning, I read this description of a good pastor:

The qualities of a pastor are impossible to describe. We can only see them in action.  No noise of clamor, but a careful manner of moving through the daily parish activities; clear eyes steadily seeing to the heart; kindness and humility in the presence of others, needing to defend nothing, prove nothing–therefore able to respond with the sureness of the flowing river.  Hiding nothing, therefore able to speak truthfully with ease.  Can you do this?  Can you wait patiently until all the voices that clamor for action settle down?  Can you resist the temptation to do what the parish seems so desperately to want you to do until the Spirit of God reveals naturally and gently the next step, and events unfold as they should, without pushing or shoving?  The pastor does not seek success.  She does not see people as tokens to be collected.  Since she does not seek these things, she is available at the level of the soul to all who seek.”

William C. Martin, The Art of Pastoring: Contemplative Reflections, page 15.

No pressure.

Better Together: Trick Questions

Matthew 22:15-22

 Just the other day my son Sam said to me, “Hey Mom, tell me a knock knock joke!”  I was game, of course, so I complied.  “Knock knock,” I said.  “Who’s there?”  He answered. 

And then…nothing. 

I wasn’t sure what to say.

Since I asked the question, it was my job to follow up with the actual joke, which of course I did not have ready.  I wasn’t paying close enough attention, as usual, and I was tricked. 

Sam thought it was hilarious.

It’s a very good thing that Jesus was smarter than I am, because in our Gospel passage today Jesus was asked a question asked for the sole purpose of tricking him, but he didn’t fall for it.  Instead, he gave the people listening to him in the crowd that day…and he gave us…a deep and profound challenge to consider, the challenge of asking ourselves to what or to whom we cede our allegiance, who it is exactly who rules our lives.

Our lectionary passage today continues in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 22.  Within the context of the Gospel story, it will be helpful to remember that all the passages we’re reading during these three weeks of stewardship come from Matthew’s account of Jesus’ last week.  In chapter 21, in fact, Jesus comes into the city to a public demonstration of palm waving and admirers calling him king.  If the Jewish leaders and the Roman authorities weren’t worried about him before then, they certainly were after that.  That demonstration only ramped up the anxiety and whatever plans the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders had to get rid of Jesus surely swung into full gear.  In other words, things were tense.

The way Matthew describes that week, though, it seems like Jesus was only fanning the flames of a potentially very big and very dangerous fire.  He went around Jerusalem teaching, as was his custom, but he was telling stories that were inflammatory and surely helped to raise the tension even more.  It wasn’t really that he was saying anything different than he’d always been saying, it was just that the revolutionary nature of his message had somehow begun to be planted in the hearts of the people.  They were listening very carefully to what he had to say.  They were beginning to see that a living faith changed everything about the lives they lived day in and day out. 

And this shift of public opinion was not a good one from the perspective of the religious leaders.  If people started interpreting faith as a call to justice, to peace, to a world in which all people are valued and where power is used for peacemaking and the healing of inequalities…well, that might result in a serious inability to control the masses.  The people who had the power were not amused, in other words.  In fact, they were alarmed.

If I were Jesus, I would think that this state of affairs might call for a strategy like…getting out of Jerusalem, going underground, hiding for a bit, at least until things calmed down a little.  Don’t you think?

Well, Jesus did not take this approach.  Instead, at least in Matthew’s memory of the way things unfolded, Jesus was very visible—hanging out in public places around Jerusalem, telling parables that were only making an already incendiary situation much more explosive.  You recall that he’d gone to the temple and turned over the tables of the money changers.  He was telling parables about wicked tenants and a wedding banquet open to everyone, not just the special people.  And none of this was helping Jesus divert attention away from himself.  Crowds followed him everywhere; people were hanging on every word.

It was in this touchy situation that the Jewish religious leaders—all different factions—joined forces and decided their best bet to discredit Jesus was going to be to ask him a trick question—to catch him up in public—to watch him trip over his own feet in front of everyone.  If they could manage that, well, then, they felt sure that the adoring public would realize Jesus’ message was not worth believing. 

Once they settled on that strategy, they decided that the perfect trick question would certainly be a question on the topic of taxes.  Nobody I know particularly likes paying taxes, but in the climate of Jerusalem the week before Jesus was crucified, the topic of taxation was especially controversial.  You remember that Jerusalem was occupied by the Roman government.  And all the Jews who lived in the region had to pay punishing taxes: there were taxes to the government of Rome; taxes like land and custom taxes, to Herod, their local Roman leader; and a temple tax to support the religious community and practice in Jerusalem.  One commentator says that things were so tense when it came to required taxes that, if a Galilean farmer were to pay what was expected of him, he would surely have very, very little left over to support his family.  The oppressive tax requirements of the government, in other words, would send an average citizen into financial ruin.

The Jewish leaders’ trick question then, as you see, had nothing to do with lofty theories of government policy or separation of church and state or even the ethics of taxation.  Their question touched on an issue of survival for most of the folks in that crowd.  The people listening that day were utterly crippled under the heavy, heavy burden of the taxes they had to pay and the desperation they felt as they tried to provide for their families and meet government expectations, too.  As the pressure of taxation increased and they found themselves wondering whether their children would eat, you can see that any conversation about taxation would be controversial.  And a good riot was exactly what they needed to take care of Jesus, that troublemaker.

So they crafted the question very carefully.  After pretending to show deference to Jesus, calling him “teacher”—a sign of respect—even though they really didn’t mean it, they asked: “What do you think, Jesus?  Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”

This was a really, really good trick question…some might say the perfect trick question.  Not only was the topic of taxation a controversial one, the question as they posed it was a lose/lose question…a trick question!  If Jesus said YES, one should pay taxes to the emperor, then it would have been obvious to everyone there that Jesus was an agent of the state—that his messages of freeing relationship with God and the end of oppression for all the people were empty, meaningless platitudes.  They would quickly become tired of listening to him, because they would know he was just like all the other power-grabbing public figures, who said one thing but did another. 

On the other hand, if Jesus said NO—you shouldn’t pay taxes, they are unlawful and discriminatory, then the Roman government would do the distasteful work of getting rid of Jesus for them.  To go around suggesting that a Roman tax was unlawful, see, put Jesus in the camp of the seditious rabble rousers who were trying to stir an uprising against the Roman occupation of the region, and Rome would never let that continue.

Jesus was caught between a rock and a hard place—either way he answered he’d be in trouble.  See what I mean?  The perfect trick question!

But did you hear his answer?  It was genius! 

Jesus not only successfully deflected a question, a one-sided answer to which would not have helped dialogue, but he also gave those who were listening a very deep and profound challenge—something they’d perhaps never considered before in all their lives.

Do you remember what he said?  “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and render unto God that which is God’s.”

Huh?

The Jewish leaders who were busy rubbing their hands together with the gleeful anticipation of sweet victory—finally—were flummoxed.  This wasn’t any kind of answer they were expecting.  It was an answer, even, that set the world spinning for them again and showed the crowd that Jesus had an agenda that was bigger and even more profound than any political position any of them held.

What Jesus recognized in his answer to the religious leaders was that the one whose life is ceded to God is the one who lives in two worlds—the temporal world of human society and the world governed by God’s best hopes and expectations for God’s creation.  We do what we have to do to be part of the society in which we live, of course.  But the one who is a true follower of God is one who understands the bigger picture: that everything we are and everything we have and everything we do…belongs to God.  We live in human society contributing our part, but we offer always to God that which is rightfully God’s.  And that would be, well, everything.

Go, Jesus, for catching the religious leaders in their trick questioning.  But wait just a minute…the answer Jesus gave was not an easy-out, thumb your nose at the government kind of answer.  No, his answer laid down the gauntlet for everybody in the crowd, and insisted that if we want to claim we live as God-followers, we have a much higher standard to meet.  The way of God is a way of justice and peace, and it flies smack in the face of the world around us.  If we give to God what is God’s, we might be uncomfortable or unpopular.  We may have to choose a way that is not the easy way, to challenge the status quo.  We will probably be sharing to a degree that not many consider smart.  And, as Jesus soon demonstrated for them all, we might even be called upon to give our lives in the process. 

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s—that’s the easy part. 

Give to God what is God’s?  That could hurt a little bit.

As many of you know, a group of 14 Calvary folks traveled to El Salvador this past week.  We got home very late last night, so all of you who were on that plane with me and are here this morning—you get extra church attendance points (give to God what is God’s, etc.).  Would you raise your hands so folks can be reminded who was on that trip?

As a group, we had a very powerful experience in El Salvador, an experience you can see and hear more about next week at the Shalom Scholarship Luncheon and Calvary’s Got Talent! show next Sunday after worship.  As we talked about what we experienced, we found it difficult for all of us to sum up the full experience we had—it was so powerful and multi-layered, filled with people and places that touched our hearts and changed our minds about a lot of things we thought we knew.

I think we would all agree, however, that one very powerful moment of the week was our meeting with Merardo Gomez, the Lutheran archbishop of El Salvador.  Archbishop Gomez, an old and very dear friend of Pastor Edgar’s, invited us to his office to talk with him about his life and work in El Salvador over the last 35 plus years.

The best way to describe Archbishop Gomez was voiced by Laura Canfield, who upon meeting him exclaimed, “Oh my gosh, he’s a Lutheran Pastor Edgar!”  And he was.  Imagine, if you will, a man who looks and sounds quite a bit like our own Pastor Edgar, except with a clerical collar.  We visited with Archbishop Gomez for a couple of hours, during which he told us the very moving story of the subversive cross.

When tensions were running very high in El Salvador in the late 1980s, with the civil war in full swing and violence erupting all over the country every day, religious leaders were increasingly being targeted for preaching messages that the government perceived to be subversive.  One Sunday, as part of worship, Archbishop Gomez led his congregation in a time of worship during which they placed a large wooden cross, painted white, at the front of the church.  During worship people were invited to come forward and to write on the cross the sins of their country, those parts of day to day life that bred oppression and pain, that were sin-filled and tearing their country apart.  One by one people came forward and wrote things on the cross like: injustice, hunger, the murder of children, the oppression of women—things like that that they all experienced, every single day, in their violent and war-torn communities. 

The purpose of the exercise, Archbishop Gomez explained, was to put upon the cross of Christ the corporate sins of the country, declaring that God was bigger and more powerful than all the sins of this world and asking that God take the sins that were keeping their people in bondage and forgive them…heal them…make a change in the way things were.  It was a corporate prayer, acknowledging Jesus’ radical call to justice and peace and begging God for that to happen in their country.

In mid-November of 1989, as resistance forces prepared to attack San Salvador, government forces were sent out with a specific list of social leaders to assassinate. Both Bishop Gomez and Pastor Edgar were on the list: they were warned of the danger and sought refuge in the German embassy, where a German missionary working with the Lutherans had made arrangements for their safety.

Shortly thereafter, Resurrection Lutheran church was raided by government troops.  A group of 16 foreigners, who were worshipping with the community as witnesses, were arrested and taken to jail.  When the soldiers saw the cross covered with the sins of the country, they “arrested” the cross, too.  Along with the prisoners, soldiers took the cross to prison, where it was installed in a torture chamber and displayed while people were being brutally tortured.  The government soldiers thought, you see, that it was a subversive cross, a call to resistance and opposition of the government.

And it was.  A subversive cross, that is.  The truth is, as that cross spelled out, that every cross is subversive.  That being a follower of the way of Jesus Christ will always run you into conflict with powers that seek to dominate, oppress, marginalize, and destroy.  Every cross is a subversive cross.

In the light of the story of the subversive cross, I thought about what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 22.  “Give to God what is God’s…” this is no small thing.  In fact, it is everything.  It is the eternal, perpetual message of the cross that calls us to give everything we have and everything we are to the high calling of God’s work in this world.

Today as we think about stewardship, about what we give in terms of our lives and our energy, our time and our prayers, our money and our possessions, we hear again the call of Jesus—the one who died on a subversive cross.  It’s a call to think long and hard about our level of commitment, about what we give…because the way of Jesus is a way that will lead us to stand in often painful opposition to the world around us, advocating for unpopular positions, working for peace and justice when it seems so elusive, giving our money and our whole-hearted commitment to be part of God’s biggest dreams for the world.

Archbishop Gomez, after he told us the story of the subversive cross, gave us a replica of the cross, which you see here on the altar this morning.  After years had passed and countless horrific and violent tragedies had occurred, Bishop Gomez, along with Pastor Edgar, was taken out of the country by the United Nations because they were targets for certain assassination.  When Archbishop Gomez finally was able to return to El Salvador he was accompanied by high international government officials, and his plane was met by the American ambassador to El Salvador.  As Archbishop Gomez deplaned the ambassador greeted him, and Archbishop Gomez quickly told him about the cross, still locked away in the torture chamber of the prison.  He asked the ambassador to help him free the cross.  Eventually the cross was freed, returned to Archbishop Gomez by the American Ambassador to El Salvador. 

Today the cross is kept in a glass case on the wall of the sanctuary in San Salvador’s biggest Lutheran church—a run-down building on a corner in downtown San Salvador.  We went to see the actual cross, and there it was, right up front by the altar, in a sanctuary where people of faith gather every week to remember that they are followers of this Jesus, who gave his life following his own advice to “give to God what is God’s.”

The people of faith in El Salvador who managed to find a way to live the subversive message of the cross, to give their lives in the strong conviction that everything they have and everything they are belongs to God, imprinted their dedication on our hearts and minds this week, too.  With the subversive cross now displayed in our sanctuary today we have the challenge and opportunity now to ask ourselves: “Will we be people who give to God what is God’s?”

It was a pointed comment Jesus made, a reminder that if we call ourselves Christians we have a high and rigorous call to answer.  And in the way of the cross, this radical invitation, we will certainly find ourselves living lives that seem different, even offensive sometimes, to those around us.  If we intend to answer this call—if our lives will really reflect the challenge of Jesus—it may be…it will be…much better not to walk this way alone.  In the discouraging, sacrifice-filled way of the cross, in other words, we are better together.  Much better together.  Because together we can call each other to answer the trick questions of the world around us with the wisdom of Jesus…and to remind each other of the subversive cross—the way of Jesus that calls us to give everything we have and everything we are in the service of God’s best hopes for the whole world.

May it be so.  Amen.

The Big Tea Pot

Permit me this shameless bragging over poetry written by my son Sam.  His assignment was to write a poem from the perspective of a minor character in a children’s story or song.  Sam, now 13, was always the cutest little tea pot when he was a baby.  Sigh.

 

The Big Tea Pot, at a Funeral, 2011

He was a little
teapot.

I always heard him
singing.

He was never picked
for sports.

Not only was he
short,

But he was kind of
stout.

He had a little
handle,

And he had a little
spout.

Then one day all the
teapots

Went to the amusement
park.

But that poor little
teapot

Was too little to
ride the rides.

He got all steamed
up.

We all heard him
shout.

Until someone tipped
him over

And poured him out.

Summary Thoughts

A few thoughts from a conversation at the end of a week together in El Salvador.  Calvary members comment:

“At the slum…in the women’s community…they were so proud.”

“Doctors and nurses…Morazone.  Ruth Orantes.   Shalom. They are doing so much.  They are aware of what they don’t have but they just move forward. The people were so gracious.”

“Solidarity with the Latino community.  What it means to be an outsider.  Community investment—what does it mean for me?  How about WIN (Washington Interfaith Network)?”

“I have always admired Amparo.  She does not live in her Dad’s shadow.  How do you live as a child of a parent who does amazing things?  Amparo and Xochitl are so gracious…they have found their own places in the story.”

“I admire the passion they have for helping their community.  Be passionate about what you believe.”

“Partners…Edgar…efforts for peace.  You might know one person—he knows so many!  Pastor Edgar moves in so many worlds.  I feel affection.  I admire that he is so humble and has the love of so many people.”

“I hope people at Calvary appreciate that Pastor Edgar is a pastor to us and a pastor to so many people in El Salvador.”

“I thought I understood our Latino congregation.  I’ve never been comfortable with the level of activism they want the church to endorse…I’ve always thought it wasn’t the church’s place.  My opinion has changed.”

“This was the most ecumenical experience I have ever had in my life…and it has been on a Baptist mission trip.  How strange.”

Esperanza

Setting out for a busy day.

Esperanza…it’s the Spanish word for “hope.”  Strangely enough, it seemed to be the theme of the day.

Today, our third day in El Salvador, our experiences ranged from confusion to grief to frustration to despair as we heard experts talk about social and economic realities in El Salvador; saw the graphic pictures and somber memorials recalling the murder of close friends of Pastor Edgar’s, Jesuit priests brutally murdered during the armed conflict here; and toured some of the poorest neighborhoods in the urban slums of San Salvador, all of us crowding into one tiny room that serves as home to a family of 10 while residents proudly showed us their home.  It was an exhausting day, much like yesterday, filled with many different experiences and perspectives.

We began at the University of Central America, a Jesuit University in the heart of San Salvador.  We met with a team of professors there, all studying as part of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding emigration—the incredible reality that 25% of El Salvador’s population lives in other countries around the world.  This is a huge number, the result of so many social, ideological, political, ecological, and economic realities plaguing this little country.  It was quite an experience to hear experts from El Salvador talk about their perspectives of this problem—a significant problem in many different expressions not just in the countries receiving immigrants from El Salvador, but also in this country which is losing its workforce and becoming economically dependent on remittances sent from far away.

This was a riveting, yet overwhelming, experience.  “How can we fix this?” seemed to be the question of the day.  The answer from all corners was, “We don’t know.”  It felt like a huge and unsolvable tangle.  Hopeless.

But in the wake of all the staggering statistics we heard, ideas began to bubble up within the group.  What does it mean to do justice?  How can we protect the human rights of those who become immigrants?  What can we do to help El Salvador heal?  One little church group, one huge problem, some small yet powerful ideas.  Hopeful.

Next we visited the Romero Center, a religious studies center that is also a memorial to the many religious professionals, priests and nuns, who

Pastor Edgar tells us about his martyred friends when we visit the Romero Center.

died during the armed conflict in El Salvador.  In their lives and witness was the birth of liberation theology, the understanding that God is an advocate for the poor and oppressed.  What happens when you teach about a God who takes the side of the poor and oppressed?  The powerful and entitled get mad—that’s what happens.  And sometimes they get so mad that they kill you.  The pictures we saw were gruesome.

The memorials were heartbreaking.  Watching Pastor Edgar remember these men, his friends, was stunning to some of us.  How could humanity be so misguided that we could ever, ever behave in this way?  It felt rather hopeless.  But as we gathered around Pastor Edgar and learned his story, we realized that we are people who live in Christian community with one who has seen up close and has even lived a commitment to justice and peace so radical it could cost your life.  If we learn to live our faith alongside others who really, tangibly understand this, maybe we could learn it, too.  And if we could learn radical discipleship, maybe our lives could be part of God’s transformation of the world as we know it.  As this realization dawned for each one of us, this experience, exhausting and unbearably sad, became somehow hopeful.

Esperanza shows us around the little neighborhood where she lives.

Then we spent the afternoon walking through some of the poorest and most blighted urban slums in the city of San Salvador.  The living conditions of these people were totally foreign to us, for sure.  Violence and fear rule these neighborhoods; basic standards of living—running water and electricity, for example—were few and far between.  The poverty is staggering.

As we walked though running streams of sewage and piles of garbage, we came across a little community of corrugated metal shelters, neatly clean, brightly painted and secure behind a fence.  We were met at the front gate by one of the leaders of the community—mostly single mothers working together to make a safe home for their children.  The woman let us in and showed us her home—one room with partitions, leaky metal roof, packed dirt floor.  We listened as she told us about her family who lived there and had since 1986.  She spoke with pride about the safe little neighborhood they’d all built together.  She smiled as she spoke.  She told us her name…Esperanza.  Hope.

There was more to this day: relationships deepened, perspectives altered, convictions born.  And all of these experiences were buoyed by hope.  Thanks be to God.

All Day Church

Jason collects youth wherever he goes.

Today was our first full day in El Salvador on a week-long trip with Calvary friends.  Since it’s Sunday, we naturally went to church.  Eleven hours and two churches later, we’re home, exhausted and changed by the many new friends we met and the meaningful moments of worship we shared.  We talked a lot about our church family back at home, marveled at the ways in which we are so very different from other Christians around the world and marveled at the ways in which we are so very much the same.  Off to bed now after a long, interesting, exhausting Sunday.  We’re looking forard to more adventures tomorrow!

Visiting the home of one of Calvary's Shalom Scholarship students.

Perspective

I just read a fascinating article on Associated Baptist Press about Nathan Adair, who has recently finished a month long project to join most of the rest of the world in living on less than $1 a day.  You can read more about his adventures by visiting his blog. 

So, I was sitting at my desk at work this Friday (my usual day off), frantically tending my never-ending to-do list, trying to think deep spiritual thoughts about the sermon for October 16^th, and feeling generally stressed out, when I read about Nathan’s adventures. 

Feeling stressed out is not usual, I’m afraid, but today I was feeling extra stress because very early tomorrow morning a group from Calvary will leave for a week in El Salvador.  We’re going as part of a friendship building learning experience with our friends from some partner churches in El Salvador.  We’ll meet the folks whom we work with to make a scholarship fund for promising young students possible, as well as to visit sites related to the devastating civil war in that country.  Meeting with government officials, walking in the steps of Monsignor Oscar Romero, seeing the country through the eyes of our associate pastor, Edgar Palacios, who has spent his life working for peace in that country…these will be the activities of the next few days.

Cue whining: it’s hard to get ready to go.  It’s difficult to clear the time and space to pack, to get the kids and the house ready for me to be gone, to make sure everything is on track at church…you know, all the usual stress of life just ramped up even more.

I confess, though, that Nathan’s story made me feel ashamed of myself.  I do have a lot to do, but I am also the recipient of tremendous opportunities, like the opportunity to travel to El Salvador with Pastor Edgar and Calvary friends.  I also am incredibly blessed by my tremendous children and the responsibility they show that allows me to do the work that I do.  And, as I just came from Starbuck’s, it was underscored to me that I do not live on less than $1 a day, and for all the stress I impose upon myself, I certainly do not worry about whether my family will eat today.

So, I am just taking a step back, reevaluate my life in light of the rest of the world, and set off to El Salvador with an open heart and a spirit of gratitude.

Wish me luck!

Life Together: Living Our Faith

Exodus 18:13-24

Today is World Communion Sunday.  World Communion Sunday was celebrated for the first time in 1933 in a Presbyterian church inPittsburgh.  While the rose-tinged memory is that the tradition was started because some Christians wanted to celebrate communion on the same day with Christians all over the world, the truth is that the Presbyterians were worried that Christians were falling out of the habit of celebrating communion—some churches were rarely doing it—and they were worried it might become obsolete, so if they started a big World Communion Sunday.  I guess they figured that then, at least, everyone would celebrate communion once a year.

Since then, the World Council of Churches has adopted the first Sunday of October as World Communion Sunday—a day in which Christians of all different expressions, from one end of the world to the other, come to the table of Christ to share in the bread and the wine and remember the gifts of grace that draw us together.

This is a good practice, I’m thinking, and not only because it insures that everyone celebrates communion at least once a year.  After all, we spend most of the time thinking about what distinguishes us from each other, don’t we?  It’s what we’re supposed to do (according to my copy of Marketing for Dummies, anyway).  We’re supposed to define how we’re different, advocate for ourselves, some would even say elbow our way to the front to get a sweet spot in the crowd. It’s what we know about how to live in society, especially American society, where we know that there are people who “deserve” to be at the front of the crowd and people are “undeserving”—and we know just which of those two categories we want to be.

But church—this church and the church of Jesus Christ all over the entire world—is a group of people struggling to learn what it means to live life together.  It would do us good this World Communion Sunday to think about exactly how we approach this holy task of living life together

As you know, we’ve been reading the story of the Israelites’ escape fromEgyptand travels through the desert toward the Promised Land.  From one drama to another, we’ve observed their struggles to learn what it means to live life together, to follow God’s directions for their life as a community, to build something unique and wonderful that stands in contrast to the world around them and rises to the high hopes God has for all of human community.

Today our text diverges from another story of miraculous water or manna from heaven, to an account of the growing pains the Hebrews were feeling all of the sudden, out on their own, without the structure of Egyptian rule to dictate the standards for their life together.  There they were, thousands of people, forced suddenly to do the work of living in community all together, with not much structure to fall back on.  It must have been chaotic!

The text says that whenever folks had a disagreement they would come to Moses.  Now, I am assuming that the disagreements people brought to Moses were a little more complicated than, say, what to have for dinner.  These would be disagreements that come about in the regular course of living life together: disputes over possessions, contractual agreements, legal transfers.  You can’t have that many people living together in one place without disagreements arising.

So what did the people do?  Without any structure in place for their life together, they went to the most powerful, most visible, most vocal point they shared in common: Moses.  After all, it was Moses who raised his staff and parted theRed Sea.  He had been their identified leader this whole time.  He was clearly very powerful; he was in prime political position to weigh in on the peoples’ disagreements.  More than that, Moses clearly had a directly line to God. 

Remember, the 10 Commandments hadn’t been given on Mt. Sinai yet; the people were still unsure about exactly who this God was they were following; and they didn’t have any way to know how God would weigh in on the issues over which they disagreed.  Moses was the closest thing—the most visible, the most powerful, the most connected.

So, you remember what happened.  Moses would set aside certain days on which he would hear complaints—disputes.  This was like a court of law, where people who had serious and legitimate disagreements with each other needed someone to intervene, to make a judgment and decide the issue.  So the people came.  In droves.  They lined up and waited all day long for Moses to hear their side of the story and to resolve the issue so life could move on.

Jethro, Moses’ father in law, saw what was going on and expressed outrage.  The truth of the matter was that there was no way Moses could possibly keep up with the volume of disputes he had to hear—he was getting tired and worn out, and he couldn’t handle the weight of all of that responsibility—not to mention just the logistics of giving everybody a chance to tell their side of the story.

Jethro pulled Moses aside—perhaps as only a father in law could do—and told him he needed to make some changes.  He needed to appoint others who could hear disputes, a structure that would handle folks’ disagreements and legal issues with some efficiency.  Because, Moses couldn’t keep doing all of this by himself—I mean, he parted theRed Seaand everything, but everyone has his limits!  More than that, Moses shouldn’t have been the one listening to everyone’s problems—in life together there are leaders, yes, but there is also a collective wisdom that is found in voices from many different parts of a community.

In other words, one person doesn’t know everything; one person can’t do everything.

In terms of our life together, the people of God atCalvaryBaptistChurch, we can thank our Baptist distinctives for teaching us this truth in practice.  As a community of faith—in our life together—we not only allow the leadership of a variety of members, we desperately require it.  In our polity we believe that we are better together when we share a collective wisdom, when we decide a course of action together, when we each take responsibility for the life and health of our community.

Maybe Jethro was a Baptist?

To Moses’ credit as a leader, he recognized that his father in law’s advice was sound.  Not only was he tired, it was time for the responsibility of leading the community be spread out among other leaders besides just him.  Not all of us who find ourselves in charge can cede responsibility and authority to other capable leaders, but the truth of the matter is that our life together is stronger and richer when many bring their voices and skills to the task of leading the community.

Today on World Communion Sunday, when we think about life together as the whole Christian family around the world, we will easily observe that we encompass a whole variety of different views of faith and practice.  And as we think about our overarching, collective goal: to share the love and grace of Jesus Christ with so many who need the hope of that message, we might get a little sidetracked by our differences.  We’re so used to vying for top billing, for climbing to the top of the pile, for being the one to whom everyone looks to issue a final verdict.

But wouldn’t it be better to live our life together empower each other as leaders, empowering each other to share the Gospel, giving away authority and responsibility to others so that together we are a stronger, better whole?

Earlier this year I heard a story that stuck with me.  I actually think one of you told me this story, but for the life of me I cannot remember who it was.  It happened on Ash Wednesday.  As you know, on Ash Wednesday many Christian traditions mark the day, the start of the season of Lent, by attending church and having our foreheads marked with the sign of the cross—in ashes.  All day long you’ll pass people on the sidewalk whose foreheads are smudged with ash, a reminder that our human lives are fleeting and that we are marked with the sign of the cross, identified as followers of Jesus Christ.

Whoever it was who told me this story told me they were standing in line at Starbuck’s before work on Ash Wednesday.  The person in line ahead of them was ordering when the barista behind the counter interrupted and asked the person what that was on their forehead.

As it was Ash Wednesday, the person said he had been to church that morning to mark the day and the mark on his forehead was the smudge of ashes, to mark the day.

The barista behind the counter said, “Oh, yes!  Ash Wednesday!”  She then went on to say with disappointment that she wouldn’t have time to get to church that day and she would miss having the ashes for Ash Wednesday.

In response to her comment, the customer with the ashes reached up and touched his own forehead, smearing his finger with some of the ashes there.  He then reached over the counter and made the sign of the cross on the barista’s forehead, a little smudge of ashes that she now wore.  Perhaps she wouldn’t make it to church, but she was marked and empowered by the customer with the ashes, an experience shared and passed along on that holy day.

And isn’t that what our practice of Christian faith should always, ever be?  Because Christian faith, life in the community of Christ, is never a life lived alone, is never viewed from the position of the very top of the pile.  Instead, life together is empowering each other to take authority.  It’s the rich tapestry of community rippling out far beyond what we experience or even what we can see.  It’s the smudge of ashes on one forehead shared across a counter at Starbuck’s because the life of faith is never, ever a life lived all alone at the top.

Yes, we are people struggling to live in faithful community with each other.  And, despite our differences—different perspectives, different languages, different cultural understandings, even different theologies—we are gathered together around the table of Jesus Christ, who stands as the one thing we share in common.  Christians all over the world today are gathering at the table of Christ, setting aside their need to be on the top of the pile, ripping off a piece of the bread and passing it along to someone next to them, not consuming themselves with listing and reciting our differences, but tasting the bread and drinking from the cup and letting our collective hearts overflow with gratitude for the one who draws us together around the table.

And the table is the very place we learn best of all what it means to live life together.

So today as we come to the table of Christ together, you are welcome here.  In a moment our pastors will come down to the table to say the words of institution that have tied together Christians over the centuries and that link us to each other even today—all around the whole world. 

Remember as we celebrate that the table of Christ is a table of welcome, where anyone who longs for the bread and the cup, for the forgiveness and grace offered through Jesus Christ, is welcome.  There is room for me, and there is room for you, there is room for us all.

We’ll celebrate today by intinction; you are welcome to come to front and take a piece of bread, dip it into the cup, and eat it.  And as we come we will offer our prayers—the prayers of the people, the prayers of a community’s life together.  Blue cards are available in the pew racks in front of you.  In the next few moments of coming to the table, of prayer and silent confession, you are invited to write your prayer, the burden you carry this day, and bring it to the front when you come to take communion.  A pastor will be there to receive your prayer card as you take the bread and the cup.

So, now, let us come to the table of Christ.  Join the communion of saints all over the world who will do the same today.  Come to the table and find your place in this, our life together.  Amen.