Monday, October 30, 2017

Sermon on Matthew 22.34-46

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews
Proper 25, A; Pentecost +21
St. Joseph-St. John, Lakewood
29 October 2017
Matthew 22.34-46

If you want to do magic,
            you need to practice.

Yesterday as I drove home from convention,
            I was nestled in to my podcasts,
                        like I am driving to and from the church during the week.
One of my weekly podcasts
            is a show I used to listen to on public radio
                        when I was in high school on the way to church.
The show is called To the Best of Our Knowledge
            and it’s a show where long-form interviews
help fuel deep insights into our world.
Keeping up with the release of Stranger Things Season 2 on Netflix
            this week’s episode was called “Even Stranger Things.”
It was, it is,
            an investigation into the paranormal.

One of the interviews
            was with an anthropologist at Stanford
                        who has specialized in religion.
When Tanya Luhrrman was in grad school
            she spent time with some English pagans.
In her study of them,
            she joined them:
                        casting spells, familiarizing herself with Tarot,
and getting to know their experience of reality
not as rational as we might experience.
In the podcast interview she reflects on an unexplained experience
            and says that among the magicking community,
            it’s well known:
                        if you wanted to do magic,
                                    you had to practice.

In today’s gospel text,
            the Pharisees want to know
                        how good of a Jew Jesus is.
“Which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
            they ask.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
This is the greatest and first commandment.”
Obvi.
It came first.
Jesus adds to his answer
            something the Pharisees don’t ask
                        something that’s not verbatim in the Hebrew Scriptures:
                                    And a second is like it:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”
But. But.
“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Everything contained in
            the Law —
how Jews are supposed
to treat one another and foreigners —
            and the Prophets —
                        God’s directions for what to do
                                    when being punished for not keeping the law —
                                    boils down to,
                                                “Love God. Love your neighbor.”

Love God. Love your neighbor.
The Diocese of Ohio
            ran an ad campaign,
                        “Love God. Love your neighbor. Change the world.”
If you want to do magic,
            you need to practice.
I’ll be preaching on the beatitudes next week.
Spoiler alert:
            they're not a list of ways to behave
                        so that you get something back.
They’re promises of what has been done
            because of God becoming flesh.
They are reality that we don’t always see,
            but reality nonetheless.

We may look naïve as Christians
            saying that peacemakers are children of God.
Or we may look callous
            and unloving when peaceful proctors
                        are mowed down by cars
            or unarmed folk
                        are killed by police
                                    and say that peacemakers are the children of God.
But we’re not naïve nor callous.
The gospel and resurrection aren’t magic,
            but they are not the world as we expect
                        or experience it.
Because of the Resurrection,
            we live in a world of what
                        might be, what really is —
even though we can’t see it. Yet
If you want to do magic,
            you need to practice.
When we gather to hear of
            Jesus, him crucified, and resurrected,
                        we practice
                                    doing what seems magic.

Gathering each week in faith
            is rehearsing — it’s practicing —
                        the world we want to see.
You might have noticed I don’t spend a lot of time
            shaking hands at the peace.
I don’t need to shake every hand here
            to long for the day when we’re all at peace with one another
                        while practicing it with those closest to me.
When we pray to be sent out
            to do the work we’ve been given to do
                        we go having been fed by Jesus
                                    who told us to love God and love our neighbors.
When we sing “For everyone born, a place at the table” and
            we make room for everyone at this Holy Table
                        and the tables on Wednesday night
                                    we’re practicing the heavenly banquet at the end of time.
When we sing “And God will delight when we are creators of justice”
            we prepare to change the world
                        by loving God and loving our neighbor.
Those lyrics are practicing the day
when all has been made well
            and all people have been restored
to unity with God and one another
            in Jesus.
If you want to do magic,
            you need to practice.

Our Gospel text today
            is after Jesus has been up on the mountain
                        with Moses — the embodiment of the Law,
                        and Elijah — the embodiment of the Prophets.
Matthew’s gospel is getting closer and closer to the crucifixion.
And when put to the test again,
            Jesus says to love God
                        and love neighbor.
He doesn’t just roll over.
He goes toe to toe with those who accuse him.
Jesus loves God and loves his neighbor,
            which doesn’t just mean being nice.
And he changes the world.

Matthew’s gospel is getting closer and closer to the crucifixion
            and after it the Resurrection.
Because of the Resurrection,
            death has been defeated
                        and reality has been changed —
                                    whether we see or experience it or not.
When we sing,
            “Christ has died.
            Christ is risen.
            Christ will come again,”
                        we state as faithful fact
                                    that there’s more to life than we see.
Believing that
            and working for it,
                        striving to make it real, what we see and know
            may seem naïve
                        or it may seem like magic.
It’s not magic,
            it's hoping that at the last days
                        we experience the joy of God’s eternal kingdom.
It may seem like magic.
If you want to do magic,
            you need to practice.
That’s what we do at this Table —
            and at those.            

Monday, October 23, 2017

Sermon on Matthew 22.15-22

The Rev. Joseph Peters-Mathews
Pentecost+20; Proper 24, A
St. Joseph-St. John, Lakewood
22 October 2017
Matthew 22.15-22

The story continues.
The drama keeps arching.
Matthew is more up front this week.
He doesn’t seem as angry,
            but the foreshadowing
                        isn’t even veiled.
The Pharisees are looking to trap Jesus in what he says
            so that they can find a way to have him killed.
There’s so much going on here,
            so much wrapped up in this text,
                        so much emotion and feeling.
There’s so much disappointment and despair
            as Matthew looks back and realizes his current context.
There’s so much hope and remembering
            how even in argumentation Jesus wins,
                        defeating not just death but those who plan his death.

The Pharisees, who are scared of the crowds,
            send their disciples
to try to entrap Jesus in a big question.
Understanding this question
is more complicated than it appears
on the surface.
Two weeks ago
            our lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures
                        was the Ten Commandments, including:
                                    “You shall not make for yourself an idol,
whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”
That matters.

The Pharisees send their followers
            to ask Jesus if the people of Jerusalem,
                        mostly Jews under the occupation of the Roman empire,
                                    should pay taxes
If Jesus simply say, “Yes”
            he loses the support of the crowds
                        many of whom think he’s come to deliver them
                        from Roman oppression.
Saying “No”
            means publicly and overtly
                        challenging the authority of Rome.
Treason, and death.
Real quick.
Jesus knows these aren’t people
            really looking for his enlightenment
                        so he traps them in their own trap.

If we were reading Matthew straight through,
            we'd know that Jesus is in the temple.
He calls his questioners hypocrites
            and asks them for the coin.
What’s on the coin?
An engraving of Caesar,
            who expects to be worshiped.
They’ve brought what is arguably an idol
            an engraving of someone who says they are a god
            into the temple.
This is supposed to be exchanged
            for faceless money
                        in the Court of the Gentiles,
                                    but that’s not really enforced.
Jesus has trapped them
            by exposing their own hypocrisy.
Oops.

They have to back off.
That’s all they can do.
While they’re doing it
            Jesus throws one more barb at them:
                        “Caesar’s face is on the money,
                                    give it back to him.
Give God what belongs to God.”

Give God what belongs to God.
What belongs to God beloved?
Everything.
While Jesus is talking about money
            in this exact instance —
                        which starts about money because of his detractors —
            Jesus is saying to give it to God.
All of it.
The Old Prayer Book emphasized this
            when gifts of bread, wine, and money were presented,
                        “All things come of thee O Lord,
                                    and of thine own have we given thee.”

Give God what belongs to God.
This passage,
            right now in October
                        as we are in the green season — still —
                                    perfectly lends itself to annual pledge preaching.
That’s all I’m going to say
about those topics today,         
            as important as they are
                        for our congregation to thrive.
Give God what belongs to God.
That’s everything.
Not just monies earned
            while living as baptized persons,
                        but everything.

For us at St. Joseph-St. John,
            it’s letting go of the fear for our survival.
It’s letting go of being afraid
            that we’ll never see something again
                        so we have to cling to it tightly.
It’s letting go of holding on to stuff
            in case we need it one day.
It’s looking at the example of Jesus
            who had no permanent home
                        and sent his disciples out
with a bag, a robe, and their sandals.
We’re having a fish fry next Saturday
            a fundraiser dreamed up this week
                        based on that good gifts God has given us.
We’re having it to make space
            for another piece
                        of yet another fundraiser.
Giving to God what belongs to God,
            giving God everything
                        is a remarkable exercise in releasing.

Wednesday night we celebrated 52 years since
            St. Joseph Church ­— of St. Joseph-St. John —
                        was founded.
I recounted the church’s ups and downs.
Giving to God what belongs to God,
            giving God everything
                        means releasing the idea of going back
to the highs and lows we’ve had before.
We remember them
            and use them for inspiration.
We mourn the losses
            of families and clergy and income.
But like Matthew writing about Jesus in this passage
            we look forward, knowing that death has been defeated
through the Resurrection of Jesus.

When I was growing up,
            we didn’t have Communion every week,
                        but we had an altar call every week.
Those who had not yet made a commitment to follow Jesus
            were invited to do just that.
Those who had made such a commitment
            were invited to come forward to pray —
                        for their needs and the needs of others
                                    often joined by others in the church who knew their burdens.
When that invitation was offered,
            our pastors always admonished people
                        to give God what belongs to God
                                    and not pick up what they’d taken to offer on the altar.
The churches of my childhood had a weekly altar call.
We do too,
            when I say “The gifts of God for the people of God”
                        and invite you to draw to this altar,
                                    leave your trials
                                                our fears
                                                            and our concerns
            while feeding on Jesus
                        who has defeated our trials
                                    your fears
                                                and our concerns.

Take them in remembrance that Christ died for you
            and feed on him in your hearts
                        by faith
                                    with thanksgiving
            that what we need is here

                        and what we give to God is already God’s.