Taking hold of life

A Sermon preached on Sept. 29, 2019, Pentecost 16 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Amos 6:1a,4-7, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31

At a family service, I’ve sometimes put on a dramatized, acted version of the Gospel reading. Today’s story of the rich man – who is not named – and the poor man Lazarus who is named, is certainly dramatic but maybe not entirely suitable, though the special effects for Hades would be fun! 

Today we celebrate Harvest Festival and we will kick off our annual Stewardship campaign. I think Paul’s Letter to Timothy has something to say about both of these topics, so I will focus on the Epistle.

What do we celebrate at Harvest Festival? Our gratitude for a successful harvest of course, symbolized by all the good gifts you see here, decorating the church. The tradition of celebrating Harvest Festival in churches is fairly recent, it began in 1843 at a church in Cornwall. The idea behind it however – to give thanks to God for God’s generosity in providing for all we need to live – is much older. In fact, as soon as humans started believing in the supernatural, they will have had some sort of religious ceremony at harvest time. Once it will have involved an animal sacrifice – but please don’t worry, that is not why we have animals with us today. Or part of the harvest might have been offered to a god or gods, the first fruits perhaps to be burned, or more often for the priest to take home. None of that will happen today either, and while I will put this all into my car tomorrow, that will only be to take it to the Teestube to be used for meals for the homeless! 

What we really celebrate at Harvest Festival is God’s generosity. We give thanks to God “who gives life to all things.” (1 Timothy 6:13) We give thanks to God “who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” (6:17) We give thanks to God who “calls us to eternal life.” (6:12) None of us here live off the land. At the most we might harvest apples from a small orchard or vegetables from an allotment. But we still have a harvest to celebrate and be thankful for: our income and wealth, our relationships and friendships, our children and grandchildren, this community ….. and let’s take a moment to think about what we are grateful for. 

As far as wealth is concerned, Paul describes two possible responses.

One can be summarized under the heading “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” (6:10) These are, in Paul’s words, “those who want to be rich (who) fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” This is the nameless rich man in the parable we heard, the one who was so focused on amassing and enjoying his wealth – conspicuously as we heard – that he forgot God and his neighbor. As we already heard in last week’s Gospel: “No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth." (Luke 16:1-13) Too often, money, power and success become things we worship and serve.

The other response is what Paul calls “godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it.” (1 Timothy 6:6-7) The question is then, what do we do with it in this world? Shun the worship of wealth, Paul writes, instead “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.” (6:11) Wealth is not bad in itself, it should just not be the source of our hope and joy. Do we love money or God? Do we rely on money or on God who richly provides? For Paul, the proper use of money and wealth is “to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share.” (6:18) And when he writes that by doing this, “they may take hold of the life that really is life,” (6:19) he is not just referring to the future, to eternal life with God, but to this one. Only a life lived in love and generosity is really life. 

Money offers spiritual opportunities if it is rightly used. And one right use is what we call stewardship: tithing a portion of your income as a regular gift to God’s Church thereby enabling us to fulfill God’s mission as we have described it in our four visions. How much should you give? 

A $100 bill, a $20 bill and a $1 bill at the end of their useful lives were together, about to be shredded. The $100 says, "I've seen the whole world during my lifetime, Why, I've been on cruises in the Caribbean, safaris in Africa, and vacations in Europe." The 20 says, "Well, I've not done quite as well as you, but I have been to Atlantic City, Disneyland, and Starbucks." They both turn to the $1 and ask, "How about you? Where have you been?" Not wanting to be outdone, the $1 says, "I've seen the whole country as well ‑ going from church to church to church." The $100 bill asks, "What's a church?"

I know your $100 and € bills all know this church. And $1 can also be huge amount – just think of the parable of the widow’s mite. But I am asking you to give generously out of what you have. I am also not threatening you with Hades if you don’t! The final verse of today’s Gospel parable, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead," is probably one of the most ironic sayings in the New Testament. Jesus did not die and rise from the dead to teach us that we have to give generously and treat our fellow humans as that, as fellow humans. Jesus died and rose again for something much greater: to show us God’s unconditional love even at the moment when it was being rejected, to show us that death has no power over us and that our relationship with God will outlast death, and to tell us to take hold of the life that really is life now.

Amen.

The problem with pride

A Sermon preached on Sept. 1, 2019, Pentecost 12 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Sirach 10: 12 – 18, Hebrews 13: 1 – 8, 15, 16, Luke 14: 1, 7 – 14

Are the seven deadly sins all bad? Let me remind you what they are – because of course none of you have any practical experience – they are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. Can any of them be good? Well, there is for example such a thing as righteous anger – as demonstrated by Jesus when he cleared the Temple. And a hunger for justice is also a good thing. In fact, in most cases the sin or vice is something good or at least neutral gone bad or taken to extremes. Desire becomes lust, curiosity and interest become envy, enjoyment becomes gluttony, anger wrath, and resting sloth. The exception is pride. Pride can – according to the dictionary definition – have a positive connotation, when it refers to “a humble and contented sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, and a fulfilled feeling of belonging.” Pride month for the LGBT community would be a positive example, a parent’s pride in their children’s achievements another. 

And yet for the Bible, and for Jesus, pride is something very negative. Jesus is actually much more likely to condemn pride than any sexual sins. In this morning’s Gospel for example, he says “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 14:14) We find a similar sentiment in Matthew’s Gospel: “The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Matthew 23:11-12) As well as in Mark: “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! … They will receive the greater condemnation.” (Mark 12:38-40). Not surprisingly, the writers of the New Testament epistles echo these harsh warnings against pride: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5) As do early Christian theologians, for example St. Augustine called pride "the love of one's own excellence." 

So, what is wrong with pride? The problem with pride – excessive pride – is that it makes us blind to our needs and to others, it separates and excludes, it is self-focused. If we believe that we are completely autonomous and self-reliant – both as people and more recently again as nations – then we are claiming to need no help and to be dependent on ourselves alone. That is a sin, so it is no wonder that Jesus condemns it.

The last part of our program at this year’s Night of the Churches is called “Better Together,” and we will use this to celebrate the very opposite of this sort of pride, focusing on what connects rather than divides our nations, and introducing several people who have been involved in active acts and/or projects of connection and reconciliation, often as a result of their faith. 

Excessive pride simply leaves no room for God. As we heard in our first reading: “The beginning of human pride is to forsake the Lord; the heart has withdrawn from its Maker.” (Sirach 10:12) Why should I turn to God and to God’s Son if I believe that I am perfect?  Anglican Theologian Tom Wright says that “pride is like a great cloud that blots out the sum of God’s generosity. If I reckon I deserve to be favored by God, not only do I declare that I don’t need his grace, mercy and love, but I imply that those who don’t deserve it should not have it.”[1] And C.S. Lewis (in Mere Christianity) wrote: “A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” He went on to ask how can “people who are quite obviously eaten up with pride say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious?” His explanation was that they worship an imaginary God, while “they theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, (they) are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people.” 

This is exactly the sort of behavior that Jesus is criticizing in this passage. The pharisee and many of his guests clearly think that God only approves of them and thinks them far better than other people, especially those that Jesus usually consorted with, and also those who did not belong to the chosen people. But I think Jesus also has a warning here for the disciples, and for us as their successors. They too were occasionally prone to the sin of pride, to assuming that as Jesus’s first followers they would have a privileged place in the kingdom, perhaps seated on Jesus right and left hand. But there are no first places in the kingdom. Think of the parable of the workers in the vineyard. They all got paid the same, regardless of when they began working. Salvation is God’s choice, not ours.

That’s the other issue with pride. In its excessive form, often associated with arrogance, it sets us up above other people. Of course, we have people who sing better than others, most of you here sing better than I do. We have people who are better musicians, painters, doctors, engineers, carpenters …. But that does not make them better persons. Every person is made in God’s image, every person is loved by God. And so, Jesus tells us to invite those who would normally be last – or just not even considered – to the banquet and to give them pride of place: “Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”  (Luke 4:14) The author of Hebrews puts it much more simply: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (13:1) 

In rather more drastic language, Sirach warns that God can easily turn established orders upside down: “The Lord overthrows the thrones of rulers and enthrones the lowly in their place. The Lord plucks up the roots of the nations, and plants the humble in their place.” (Sirach 10:14-15) if you hear an echo of the Magnificat in there, you are not mistaken: “He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53) The only preference God knows is for those in need. If God reaches out to all, then those who seek to honor and imitate God through God’s Son should reach out also. Not only must we be willing to acknowledge our weaknesses and our need for help, but also our willingness and ability to help and support and serve others.

“The greatest among you will be your servant,” Jesus says (Matthew 23:11) and in opposition to pride, he praises and raises up those who are humble: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) God honors those who serve and who are humble. True humility is recognizing our need for God, and for one another. The poor and the powerless should be welcome. For such generous hospitality and true humility, God promises us blessing, not out of any right, but out of the need for God’s blessing that we share with all.

Amen.

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[1] Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone, 175-6