If at First You Don’t succeed – Perhaps You Shouldn’t Try Harder

The commandments of Jesus seem to be more than Christians could ask or imagine - not in a good way but, rather, they seem impossible.  Here is a summary of what is it that we must be and do?  Very simply:

• Love our enemies
• Bless them that curse you
• Pray for those who are spiteful to you
• Turn the other cheek if someone strikes you cheek
• Someone steals from you – give them something more to take
• Give to everyone who asks you

Here is a quote by G. K Chesterton that wonderful English writer, which is very applicable to this, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

However, rather than becoming overwhelmed by the thought of trying to follow these commandments, we can turn, instead the beatitudes which can be considered alternative or, as Richard Rhor puts it, paradoxical commandments:

The Beatitudes are paradoxical “commandments.” They don’t tell Christians what to do; they tell them what they will be like if they are living in the kingdom: They will be poor in spirit, pure in heart, merciful and gentle peacemakers; they will thirst for what is right and be persecuted because of it, and they will mourn.

Lutheran priest and author Nadia Bolz-Weber offers her own version of beatitudes for people who may not feel blessed today.  what if the Beatitudes aren’t about a list of conditions we should try to meet to be blessed? What if they are not virtues, we should aspire to?... Maybe the Sermon on the Mount is all about Jesus’s lavish blessing of the people around him on that hillside … who that world—like ours—didn’t seem to have much time for: people in pain, people who work for peace instead of profit, people who exercise mercy instead of vengeance:

Blessed are the poor in spirit. You are of heaven and Jesus blesses you.

Blessed are they for whom death is not an abstraction.

Blessed are they who have buried their loved ones, for whom tears could fill an ocean.

Blessed are they who have loved enough to know what loss feels like.

Blessed are the mothers of the miscarried.

Blessed are they who don’t have the luxury of taking things for granted anymore.

Blessed are they who can’t fall apart because they have to keep it together for everyone else.

Blessed are the motherless, the alone, the ones from whom so much has been taken….

Blessed are those who no one else notices. The kids who sit alone at middle-school lunch tables. The laundry guys at the hospital. The sex workers and the night-shift street sweepers.

Blessed are the losers and the babies and the parts of ourselves that are so small, the parts of ourselves that don’t want to make eye contact with a world that loves only the winners.

Blessed are the forgotten.

Blessed are the closeted.

Blessed are the unemployed, the unimpressive, the underrepresented….

With that thought, I wish you blessings this day and every day.

 

Sermon July 23, 2017 6th Sunday after Trinity

Being baptized in to death is not a very appealing idea.  I don’t know about you but the idea of dying is not something I embrace and welcome.

We do not normally embrace death.  Indeed, I was listening to a program on CBC radio this week —an episode of Ideas, that wonderful program that explores exactly as it is named— ideas for our world today.  This episode was an interview with Yuval Harari.  He is an historian who speculates about where humankind is heading.  A lot of his speculation is hopeful but a lot of it is troubling.

Harari proposes that the next great technological breakthrough is going to be the development of immortality—or at least the quest for it.  He proposes that no one would want to have a pill that would guarantee you a life span of a million years.  However, he says that everyone (he does qualify by saying almost everyone) would agree to living ten years longer in good health.  Harari proposes that technological breakthroughs will offer extended life and extended mental capacity to people.  However, as with all technology it will be at a price—one that is going to be very expensive.  What will then develop is a Brave New World with biologically separated classes—a cast system which will be based on biological inequality.

This is a very frightening possibility.  But if you look at the premise, who wouldn’t want to extend their lives by ten years of good health,  Then when the ten years is over you can be offered another ten years and so on and so one – ad infinitum.  It would be a renewable contract.  I certainly would like a longer life in good health.  But opening that Pandora’s Box of eternal life is another matter entirely.  I don’t know how many times I would want to renew that contract.

What would it mean if we did not have the reality of our mortality informing our lives?  We would certainly be tempted to believe that we were like God’s and live our lives accordingly.  Out mythological first parents were expelled from the Garden of Eden as God feared they would eat of the tree of life and become gods.  The danger of that temptation has been a reality since we began to walk this earth. 

How, then, does this relate to being baptized into death to being buried with Jesus by baptism into death?  It is exactly this desire to be immortal that the story of the Garden of Eden was warning against.  When we are baptized into death with Christ it is exactly what we are dying to.  We are dying to the old life in which we can have the temptation that we can be like god and have life eternal and all the power that goes with it.

When we are baptised we die to the old life of desiring to be in control of our live and trying to maintain that control of ourselves and our world.  Jesus came into the world to show us that this way of being was wrong.  The old way of being was a way that wanted to control our lives to the extent that we try to ensure that God would give us what we want.  The old way of the covenant was to live in a way that God would give us what we want.  The Israelites believed that if they lived according to the commandments —not just ten but all 900 or so of them—God would grant them a favoured existence.  In effect, God would give them what they wanted.  God sent his son into the world to show us that there is another way. 

It is a way that is based on love.  He tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart and mind and soul and mind and strength; and to love your neighbour—including your enemies—as yourself.

He also came to give us the grace of forgiveness.  When we do not follow this commandment—when we do not try or when we try and do not succeed—we will be forgiven and we are given the opportunity to try again.  That is the new life that we are born to when we rise out of the waters of baptism.

How then are we to live in a life of love; loving God and loving our neighbours?  Well the Gospel hymn gives us a pretty sound picture of what it would look like. 

O Master, let me walk with thee
in lowly paths of service free;
tell me thy secret; help me bear
the strain of toil, the fret of care.

Help me the slow of heart to move
by some clear, winning word of love;
teach me the wayward feet to stay,
and guide them in the homeward way.

Teach me thy patience; still with thee
in closer, dearer company,
in work that keeps faith sweet and strong,
in trust that triumphs over wrong;

In hope that sends a shining ray
far down the future's broadening way,
in peace that only thou canst give,
with thee, O Master, let me live. Amen 

Sermon February 16, 2014 Forgiveness Part 1

This is not the Gospel I would have chosen to use to preach my first sermon here at St. Stephen’s.  It would have been much easier to preach on last week’s Gospel lesson.  It spoke of us being the light of the world and not hiding our light under a bushel basket.  However, I don’t think that these things happen by chance.  I have to think that there is a reason why this Gospel lesson came up on the lectionary today.  I’m just not sure what it is. 

Do any of you feel hopeful after hearing the Gospel this morning?  Well I certainly don’t – or didn’t when I re-read this passage on Monday.  Jesus sets a very high standard for us as his followers.  I have certainly been angry with people in the past.  I don’t think I am angry with anyone at the moment but I’m certain that I will be in the future.  I think getting angry is part of being human.  You would have to be a saint not to get angry at times and from what I know of saints a lot of them got angry at times.  I must also admit that I have a wandering eye at times and appreciate a beautiful woman. 

I like to think of that as admiration for God’s creation but I’m not sure after reading this how Jesus would consider it.  He is setting a pretty high standard.  

In the passage before the Gospel reading he tells us, “Therefore, whoever breaks^* one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”  Now Jesus is talking about the Ten Commandments but it goes beyond that.  As a good Jew he was aware that there were 613 commandments in the Torah.  He was certainly referring to all of them because he tells us that we should not break the least of them and certainly you can’t consider any of the ten as less than any others.  However, there are some of the 613 that can be considered lesser.  How about the prohibition of eating blood?  I don’t follow Kosher laws.  The one a particularly like is the commandment to execute a disobedient child by stoning him or her to death.  I must admit that I have not followed that one.  

Of course it is easy to justify not fulfilling some of these laws.  However, a few verses later Jesus sums up what he expects of his followers, “Be perfect, therefore, as you heavenly Father is perfect.”  How are we to live up to the standard that Jesus has set for us?  If we accept what Jesus is telling us at face value we might as well forget it.  We are doomed to failure and whatever punishment lies ahead for us when we meet our maker.  However, these commandments of Jesus cannot be taken out of context of his life and teachings.  Jesus spent a lot of time with outcasts and sinners.  I believe he did that because he knew that they were in need of him.  But I also in my imagination believe that it was because they were a lot more enjoyable to spend time with that the good pious people.  Jesus was also compassionate.  Remember the account of him saving the woman who was about to be stoned for adultery.  He stopped those preparing to stone her in their tracks by telling them that anyone who was without sin should cast the first stone.  Jesus knew that no one was perfect – no one was without sin.  So why would he require perfection of us?

If we investigate this at more depth we can discover that there are alternate ways of understanding what Jesus is saying.  We are reading this in English after various translations and after an oral tradition.  I have for some time struggled with the commandment of Jesus that tells us to be perfect.  That is certainly impossible for me and I do not know anyone who is perfect.  I also think it can be detrimental if we have expectations of ourselves and others that we will be perfect.  An alternate understanding of this passage is that the original language that Jesus was speaking in – Aramaic – a better translation of perfection is ‘all embracing’.  That is something which I can strive for.  It is still not something that is easy but it is a wonderful goal.  To embrace God’s creation in all its variety would be wonderful and I am striving more to do that in my life.  

However, I believe that the key to understanding the Gospel and much of his message for us can be contained in one word, ‘forgiveness’.  Jesus was and is well aware that we are not able to live the perfect life.  He told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. However, if she didn’t – and I’m sure she sinned in different ways many times in her life as we all do.  However, if he had encountered her again he would have had the same message for her – he would not condemn her – her sins would be forgiven.   

For me the essence of this approach is summed up in our baptismal covenant.  One of the covenant statement says, ‘Will you persevere in resisting evil and, whenever you fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord?’  Note it says not if you fall into sin but whenever you fall into sin.   We are to persevere in resisting evil.  But we will inevitably fail to do so.  We will miss the mark which is one meaning of sin.  As Christians we are called to repent of our sin – to acknowledge them to ourselves and to God and aim once more to hit the mark.  This may difficult and it is but it is not impossible for with God all things are possible.  Thanks be to God.