Tag: Matthew 25

“Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There” Sermon by the Rev. Paul J. Carling, Ph.D. | Nov. 16, 2014

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Judges 4: 1-7; Matthew 25: 14-30

The Rev. Dr. Paul J. CarlingI love a good story, but sometimes, when I’m right in the middle of telling a great one, Cherise will interrupt me and say, “Wait a minute, that’s not what actually happened,” to which I’ll respond, “But sweetheart, it’s so much more entertaining my way!” Maybe that’s why, as a people, we seem to love re-writing our history. Take Rosa Parks’ story, for example. We know that her refusing to move to the back of a Birmingham, Alabama bus in 1955, changed the entire course of the struggle against the social sin of racism in our country. But we like to picture her as an anonymous woman, worn out after a long day, after a long life of hard work, just too tired to move when she was ordered to give up her seat for a white man.

But in her autobiography, Parks explains what really happened: “People always say I refused to give up my seat because I was tired,’ she says, ‘but that isn’t true. I wasn’t tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I wasn’t old, although some people think I was an old lady then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”1

In today’s Hebrew Scripture reading, once we get past all the unpronounceable names – it’s sort of like a Dostoevsky novel, isn’t it? – we find another extraordinary woman, Deborah. Deborah, a judge in Northern Israel, is simply doing her job – hearing the day to day complaints and conflicts of her people, and mediating just solutions. She’d kept her job when the Canaanites enslaved Israel, as long as she agree not to challenge their iron rule.

I imagine Deborah sitting there, shielded from the scorching desert sun by her palm tree. In between appointments, she’d get a little drowsy, and begin dreaming about a better time for her people, about what it might take to set her people free. But it wasn’t the hot sun, so much as listening for God’s voice, that made her realize, just like Rosa Parks, that what was making her really tired was giving in to this kind of slavery.

Deborah was no soldier; she was a counselor and a legal advisor. So she went to Barak, Israel’s military leader, and told him about God’s plan. Then she used her mediation skills to get all of the tribes of Israel to work together, for the first time. And Israel rose up as one, and took back its freedom.

Which brings us to today’ gospel – the story of a master who entrusts his fortune to his servants while he’s away. We like to re-write this story as a kind of seminar on prudent investing, where God is the master and we’re the servants, who are given talents we either invest successfully or squander. We all know who the good guys are here, right?

Well, the message about using our God-given talents wisely is right on, isn’t it? But a more careful reading shows this particular master is anything but God. The text says he “…is a harsh man. He reaps what he doesn’t sow and gathers where he didn’t scatter seed.” In other words, he makes his wealth by exploiting other people. Off on a junket, he asks his servants to manage his nasty business while he’s away. Two of them invest his funds successfully, while the third buries them in the ground.

When the reckoning comes, the nameless third servant, who’s apparently as tired as Rosa Parks was at participating in this kind of situation, simply speaks the truth, and of course pays the price. Just like a friend I talked with recently who lost her job in financial services because she refused to go along with an unethical demand from her boss. Three very different people – three courageous moral choices.

This is pretty explosive stuff for the people listening to Jesus. They still believed that God, and everything sacred, resided in the Temple. But Jesus is announcing that the sacred lives not in church, but in our everyday lives, and in the day-to-day choices we make to either advance the kingdom of God or to go along with the status quo.

Which is the whole point of our baptism, where we promise to pay attention to God’s voice in our lives, and not just the demands of other people. If you look at the Book of Common Prayer, you’ll remember that in our baptisms, we promise to:
“Continue in the apostles’ fellowship, in the breaking of the bread and in the prayers” – that’s what we’re doing right now – why? So that from Monday to Saturday, we will: “Persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord; Proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ; Seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves; and Strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”

The truth is that Deborah, the nameless third servant, Rosa Parks, and that friend of mine in finance, are just like the rest of us – cruising along, devoting our time and talents to doing our jobs, taking care of our families, going to church; reading the news headlines each day about how the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and struggling to figure out how that has anything to do with us. But on one crucial day each of these four came face to face with a terrible injustice and they realized how tired they were of being silent. They listened for the voice of God, and they chose to live the gospel.

Devoting our God-given time and talents to living the gospel is never the easiest or the most comfortable thing to do. We all struggle to stay aware of God’s presence in the ups and down of our lives. But remember, we’re never asked to do this alone. In baptism, we promise to remind each other of God’s presence, to discover together the courage and the hope and the joy we need to make it through our messy lives, to bring God’s reign just a little closer – one day at a time, one courageous decision at a time.

Retired Bishop Barbara Harris of Massachusetts, a modern prophet, explains the great paradox of how, as Christians, we’re able to face into such an ocean of human need, such a sea of human injustice, and still proceed with hope and joy. It’s because, Bishop Harris says, “We are an Easter people, living together in a Good Friday world.”2

 

 

1 Parks, Rosa (1992). My Story. New York: Penguin Books.
2 Harris, Barbara (June 15, 2001). Sermon at the ordination of Transitional Deacons, Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Boston, MA.

Open Minds, Open Hearts | Sermon by the Rev. Paul J. Carling, Ph.D. | November 9, 2014

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Wisdom of Solomon 6: 12 – 16; Matthew 25: 1 – 13

I have a confession to make. Some of Jesus’ parables give me a headache.

The Rev. Dr. Paul J. CarlingTake today’s story about the ten bridesmaids – Jesus makes a distinction between five who are foolish and five who are wise. Well, that sounds like us, right? Except that most of us are both wise and foolish at the same time, and Jesus isn’t usually given to either – or thinking. When the foolish ones realize they don’t have enough oil, the wise ones refuse to help, saying they won’t have enough if they share. Surely Jesus isn’t saying this is the way we should behave – he’s all about abundance. Then the Lord of the manor, even though he selected the bridesmaids, when some arrive late, says he doesn’t know them, and casts them into the darkness. Is this an image of God? It’s certainly not one I recognize.

I officiated at a wonderful wedding yesterday. Not only ALL the bridesmaids, but ALL the groomsmen, were late. I missed a cue and was late starting the procession. We all had a great time anyway. And I think God thoroughly approved. Well, as a priest friend of mine once remarked about this parable, “You know Paul, maybe understanding every single one of Jesus’ parables is simply above our pay grade.”

But the takeaway for me lies in the last sentence. “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

The truth is we’re all capable of behaving like the forgetful foolish bridesmaids, and like the cheapskate wise ones, to say nothing of the insensitive Lord. And we all know that the world can be a pretty unforgiving and dangerous place when we’re not prepared. But we also know that when we are prepared, by living our lives with open hearts and open minds, miracles can happen.

Our dearest friend from London, Mike, was visiting last week, and on Monday, he asked me to show him around Manhattan. Remember what a beautiful sunny day it was? Well, I was delighted. What I forgot is that Mike, who lived for many years in Scotland, is what they call a Munro Bagger.

There are 282 mountains in Scotland over 3000 feet, called Munro’s. And the crazy people who vow to climb every one of them are called Munro Baggers. So Mike’s plan, revealed to me only very gradually, was that we would spend a solid 12 hours walking the length and breadth of Manhattan, including two trips across bridges to Brooklyn and back.

At about the midpoint, Mike commented that I seemed, well… a little peaked. “No kidding,” I thought. A few minutes later, I failed to notice a particularly high curb, tripped over it with both my feet, and made a solid face plant on the pavement.

Fortunately, I didn’t pass out, but before I knew it, there was a large pool of blood forming under my face. And that’s when the first miracle occurred.
Out of the crowd of passing New Yorkers, five individuals, none of whom knew each other, immediately stopped to help.

One well-dressed fellow who I imagined to be a hedge fund manager by the size of his wristwatch, pulled out a cell phone, ready to call 911. A harried looking woman took one look, rushed off, and reappeared with a bag of ice (“Where do you get a bag of ice in a minute,” I wondered, “much less a New York minute?”). A third woman produced a roll of paper towels, and a fourth a fresh bottle of seltzer she’d bought. The fifth man, apparently homeless, gently repeated, over and over, “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right.”

And the second miracle? Every one of the five stayed for about 15 minutes while we held the ice to my face, got my nosebleed under control, got me all washed and toweled off, helped me sit up, and finally stand. They only left when Mike declared me absolutely fit to resume our hike.

What was it about these five New Yorkers that made them immediately suspend everything they were doing, silence all the “shoulds” and the “to dos” in their heads, break apart from the pack, and interrupt their lives to help a stranger? Most others just walked past, but somehow these five were awake, they were prepared.

They had a clarity of purpose, a priority for being people of compassion, that stopped them in their tracks when they saw a fellow human being in trouble. They were living with open minds and open hearts.

And isn’t this exactly what Jesus is calling each of us to – to stay awake, be prepared, keep our minds and hearts open, so that we can act without hesitation, when one of God’s people need us?

We usually associate being prepared with being cautious, avoiding risk, keeping ourselves safe, making sure we have enough, right? Just like the five so called “wise” bridesmaids in today’s gospel. But for Christians, maybe that’s the opposite of being prepared. The reason we’re asked to be prepared is so, when the call comes, we’ll have the courage and the faith to actually risk living Jesus’ good news. And the way we stay prepared is to do the hard work of staying connected to God and to the shared wisdom around us that keeps our minds and our hearts open.

Christians understand that God is always creating opportunities for us to be God’s eyes and ears and hands in this world. But as Martin Luther King reminded us, we’re only aware of these opportunities when we stay open to the “fierce urgency of the now.” And it’s only when we act on that awareness that God’s kingdom breaks through into the world.

So let’s be prepared – let’s keep our minds and our hearts open – and we may just get to play a part in God’s next miracle!