Vineyards

Vineyards from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Isaiah 5:1-7 (776)

1Let me sing for my beloved

My love-song concerning his vineyard:

My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

2He dug it and cleared it of stones,

and planted it with choice vines:

he built a watchtower in the midst of it,

and hewed a wine vat in it;

he expected it to yield grapes,

but it yield wild grapes.

3And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem

and people of Judah,

judge between me and my vineyard.

4What more was there to do for my vineyard

that I have not done in it?

When I expected it to yield grapes,

why did it yield wild grapes?

5And now I will tell you

what to do with my vineyard.

I will remove its hedge and it shall be devoured;

I will break down its wall,

and it shall be trampled down.

6I will make it a waste;

it shall not be pruned or hoed,

and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;

I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

7For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel

and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting;

he expected justice, but saw bloodshed;

righteousness, but heard a cry!

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God

Matthew 21:33-46 (29)

33”Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, skilled another, and stoned another. 36Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ 39So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing and it is amazing in our eyes?’ 43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom. 44The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

45When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parable, they realized he was speaking about them. 46They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

This is the Word of the LORD

Thanks be to God.

Isaiah and God have a very different relationship than the discipleship we normally imagine. In a world where we often keep God at arms length by talking about the god of all heaven and earth, who spins the whirling planets, whose majesty is without end, there's something scandalous about beginning a prophetic passage with "Let me sing for my beloved." I have not found that level of divine intimacy in many of the churches in which I have worshipped.

The divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah were accustomed to the grand language of Temple worship, where God was enthroned in the heavens, and the earth was his footstool. God was always accessible for the divided kingdoms, but as also kept distant by the pomp and ritual of the temple. It was the kind of difference between shaking hands and holding hands.

God held Isaiah's hand. God wanted to hold Israel's hand, and Judah's, as he had when they wandered in the wilderness together. But the divided kingdoms kept God at a distance.

Perhaps God's covenant peoples kept God at a distance because an intimate relationship with God means living a transformed life. Reformed and always being reformed, as the saying goes.

Yet God is not satisfied with a handshake and an unchanged life. Isaiah's love-song on God's behalf portrays a vineyard owner who tirelessly and diligently does everything right. "My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones,

and planted it with choice vines: he built a watchtower in the midst of it," The land is ready, the best vines are selected, a watchtower is built to defend it from any pest that might threaten the vineyard. This is not the act of a creator who can be held at a distance, this kind of loving cultivation shows that God cares deeply about our response in faith.

God carefully collects us and prepares a place for us as a long-term investment, even hewing a wine vat which would not pay for itself for many harvests. Truly no vine could hope for better circumstances in which to grow. "However, it is not our self-interest that God is cultivating...God's love, care, and protection come with an expectation: justice and righteousness. These are the fruits God longs to see flourish in us.”

When those fruits do not flourish, things take a darker turn. Isaiah’s love-song changes voice, and we find ourselves feasting on the bitterness of wild or rotten grapes. God is deeply hurt by the failure of the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!”

For all the work God has done establishing a covenant people, guiding them from slavery to the promised land, preserving them through the centuries, one would expect unfettered faithfulness. Yet the chosen people cannot keep the covenant, and the consequences for their crimes are vivid.

”The threat of judgment may be thunderous here, but the parable also invites us to glimpse the potential for abundant fruitfulness in the lives of those who are faithful." Everything is set up for our success as servants of the living God, who redeems with a strong arm and who holds our hand throughout all our struggles. God’s reaction to Israel and Judah’s failure is not that of a distant God, but of the intimate beloved on whose behalf Isaiah sings.

God cares about us so much that God cares how we respond to the intimate intervention in our lives. God longs to see us live righteously, to Do Justice when we interact with one another. Justice and Righteousness in scripture are more than just finding what is fair or living according to some expansive ruleset.

In scripture, Justice tears down oppression and liberates both the prisoner and the jailer. Justice and righteousness reach beyond the boundaries we draw between people and show hospitality to the ones we might consider “other.” Justice and righteousness always point to God as the source of all authority and reject and subversion of God’s sovereign love. Justice and righteousness shine through loving your neighbor as yourself, as commanded in Leviticus 19:18, and through loving the LORD our God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our strength as commanded in Deuteronomy 6:5.

We all know the passage where Jesus quotes those two laws as the greatest commandments. They were nothing new, and yet the people of God then, as now, struggled to live the covenant fully. When God expected the fruit of his vineyard, he instead found violence.

“When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, skilled another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’”

"This is the heir, let us kill him and get his inheritance!" I don’t have much experience with estate planning, but I don’t imagine most people write their wills to include leaving something to the one who murders their heirs. But it's exactly how God worked at the cross. We killed the heir of heaven and earth, and through the resurrection we were also made heirs! None of the chief priests and elders of the people to whom Jesus was speaking had this radical grace in mind when they were asked to predict what happened next:

“Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”

“Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing and it is amazing in our eyes?’ Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruit of the kingdom. 

Where we expect, and deserve, a miserable death for our failure to produce justice and righteousness, God instead responds with unyielding grace. There is still kingdom work to be done, and God cares about creation enough to see it done, even if it means having to find new hands with which to do it. "[The kingdom of God] refers not to the age to come but to a special relationship to God's sovereignty.” When we fail to be faithful, God’s work will still be done, we just lose the joy of having God work through us. God plants new vineyards, God hires new workers.

And yet neither of these texts are hopeless. There is judgment to be sure, but God’s judgment, like God’s justice, restores and invites us back into relationship with the Holy One. “The transfer of stewardship to a ‘people that produces the fruits of the kingdom’ is a restorative act, not a punitive act.”  God is intimately involved in creation, will not wait for us to figure it out on our own, because we’ve shown we can’t get there by ourselves. So at the same moment he is pronouncing judgment, God is already working in both of these passages to bring God’s people back into the joyful relationship which God intends for them. For the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah, that meant prophets and catastrophe, and eventually restoration. For the people to whom Jesus was speaking in the temple when he told his parable, that meant that he would be led to the cross, and that the cross would lead to the resurrection, where the power of sin and death would be forever broken.

We believe that in Communion, by the power of the Holy Spirit we are elevated to dine with Christ at God's table. Our whole selves are nourished by Christ's real presence among us, and we are reminded of how far God went to restore us to the intimate relationship where we can share a meal with God and with one another. Every time we break bread or drink of the fruit of the vine, we proclaim Christ's saving death until he comes again.

Until then, we have the responsibility to bear the fruits of the kingdom of God: justice and righteousness. God cares deeply about us, and holds our hand throughout the whole of human history, and cares about how we respond in faith to what God has already done. We can try and hold God at arms length, like the divided kingdoms did, like the chief priests and the elder of the people did, like the church still sometimes does. But it is better to embrace the transformation God has already accomplished in us, and sing the songs of our beloved, and to bear the fruits from this table, where we are fed, out into the vineyard of all of the peoples of God.

How's That Working out for you? (Acts 15:5-19 and Jonah 4:1-11)

How's That Working Out for You from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Acts 15:5-19

5Some of the believers from among the Pharisees stood up and claimed “The Gentiles must be circumcised. They must be required to keep the law of Moses.”

6The apostles and the elders gathered to consider this matter. 7After much debate, Peter stood and addressed them, “Fellow believers, you know that, early on, God chose me from among you as the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the word of the Gospel and come to believe. 8God, who know’s people’s deepest thoughts and desires, confirmed this by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. 9He made no distinction between us and them, but purified their deepest thoughts and desires though faith. 10Why then are you placing a burden on the shoulders of these disciples that neither we nor our ancestors could bear? 11On the contrary, we believe that we and they are saved in the same way, by the grace of the Lord Jesus.”

12The entire assembly fell quiet as they listened to Barnabas and Paul describe all the signs and wonders God did among the Gentiles through their activity. 13When Barnabas and Paul also fell silent, James responded, “Fellow believers, listen to me. 14Simon reported how, in his kindness, God came to the Gentiles in the first place, to raise up from them a people of God. 15The prophets agree with this; as it is written,

16After this I will return,

and I will rebuild David’s fallen tent;

I will rebuild what has been torn down.

I will restore it

17so that the rest of humanity will seek the Lord,

even all the Gentiles who belong to me.

The Lord says this, the one who does these things

18known from earliest times.

19Therefore, I conclude that we shouldn’t create problems for Gentiles who turn to God. 

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Jonah 4:1-11

1But Jonah thought this was utterly wrong, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the LORD, “Come on, LORD! Wasn’t this precisely my point when I was back in my own land? This is why I fled to Tarshish earlier! I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy. 3At this point, LORD, you may as well take my life from me, because it would be better for me to die than to live.”

4The LORD responded, “Is your anger a good thing?” 5But Jonah went out from the city and sat down east of the city. There he made himself a hut and sat under it, in the shade, to see what would happen to the city.

6Then the LORD God provided a shrub, and it grew up over Jonah, providing shade for his head and saving him from his misery. Jonah was very happy about the shrub. 7But God provided a worm the next day at dawn, and it attacked the shrub so that it died. 8Then as the sun rose God provided a dry east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint. He begged that he might die, saying, “It’s better for me to die than to live.”

9God said to Jonah, “Is your anger about the shrub a good thing?”

Jonah said, “Yes, my anger is good - even to the point of death!”

10But the LORD said, “You ‘pitied’ the shrub, for which you didn’t work and which you didn’t raise; it grew in a night and perished in a night. 11But for my part, can’t I pity Ninevah, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who can’t tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Jonah’s story is familiar. It’s one of the most portrayed stories in scripture, and we can probably all recite its highlights. When Jonah get’s the call to get up go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry out against it, He runs away, unwilling to do the Lord’s will, not out of fear, but knowing God’s character well enough to see where this is going to end up.

After a fish-bellied layover, he finds himself back on shore, and this time does as he is told. He goes to Ninevah, delivers a very short message, and the whole town repents of their evil, rather comically dressing even their animals in mourning clothes.

The people living in Ninevah are taking a chance that even though they don’t know the law, if they show some effort, that perhaps God will still spare them from the fate they have earned. Not entirely unlike the Gentile believers in the early church. They knew that the gospel appealed to them, that Christ was the kind of God worth following, even though they had no idea where to start. Church leaders gathered in Jerusalem to discuss what to do with this new group of eager converts to the faith. “Some of the believers from among the Pharisees stood up and claimed ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised, They must be required to keep the law of Moses.’” These new people must be held to the same rules as we have held ourselves! They’ve got to fit in with the old traditions, and if the gospel means enough to them, then they will do things the correct way. You know, our way.

That sounds rather familiar to a 21st century church. We’re here, got a big beautiful building with lots of loving people inside it. There are greeters at the door, programs for the children, and the seats are even pretty comfortable! Come and find us, we’re a very welcoming church!

So long as you know how to use a hymnal, when to sit down and stand up, what to do when you’re praying, what to do when someone else is praying, and don’t mind someone standing at the front and talking to you for half an hour, we’ll absolutely welcome you among us!

I have every confidence that when people come to the typical church, they will like what they find. They’ll find faithful, loving people. They’ll find a community that is willing to nurture them on their journey. They’ll find that we’re not all that pharisaical or judgmental, and that those stories about people getting kicked out of a little old lady’s pew are more folklore than fact.

Perhaps they’ll even learn to love the tradition that feeds us. Eventually the ritual of saying the Lord’s Prayer together will become as familiar a comfort to them as it is to us. Eventually they may even feel their hearts strangely warmed by the “thee’s” and “thou’s” of the King James Version of the Bible.

Perhaps they may choose to live according to the law of Moses?

Like the Pharisees, we often expect others who come into our home to fit into the patterns that are already in place. It’s the way things are done, and it’s our understanding of how we live out who we are. It’s a very specific formula that perhaps doesn’t involve a codified religious legal system, but does have certain expectations about the way one acts in church.

It’s a fact of the human condition that we tend to associate with those who are most like us: our families, with the same backgrounds and habits, even physical features and mannerisms; our friends, with whom we have shared experiences and common interests; our co-workers, who share the pattern of our daily lives; and our churches, who tend to share similar theological ideals, political affiliations, and economic levels within each congregation. Churches tend to be one of the most segregated places in our culture. Those who join us are expected to look and act within the margins of appropriateness, and they may bring their own flavors and variations on the way we’ve always done things, but at some point if they find themselves not fitting in, they’l leave.

It’s only natural then, that churches who want to grow tend to look for people who are a lot like them. Folks who know to come to church at 10:30, who know how to dress for worship, and who know how to carry themselves with an appropriate amount of reverence. I would guess though, that the people who are likely to adhere to those often unspoken traditions already have a church home. So your growth is going to come either from new people moving into the community or church members having babies.

But those aren’t the only people whom God has chosen and called. Christianity isn’t a birthright, it’s a life lived in response to the free gift of God’s grace. There are people in this world who know that there is something out there greater than them, who have experienced God, but don’t have the language to articulate that experience. We use ugly words to describe them, like “unchurched,” and they are not us, unless they become just like us. It’s an “us” and “them” division drawn over who belongs in the club. But being chosen by God is not based on whether or not one attends church. It’s based solely on the will of God, even if that means that we are sent from our Israelite spiritual heritage into a Gentile world.

Perhaps we should heed Peter’s words to the inner circle of the church council in our Acts passage, “God, who know’s people’s deepest thoughts and desires, confirmed this by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, but purified their deepest thoughts and desires though faith.” The Gentile and Jewish Christians are going to end up doing things differently, but God is not the one who makes the distinction. We are the one’s who point and say “Why can’t you just fit in to what we’re already doing? All of our members are happy with the way we do things now.”

Because God chooses to expand his kingdom without regard to the boundaries we draw for ourselves. The church in Acts sees that God is acting across ethnic and religious boundaries, and chooses to change themselves to unite all of God’s people in Christ. Jonah, likewise, is called out of his homeland to preach to Ninevah, that great city, and goes knowing that God will be as merciful to them as she has been to Israel. 

God does not stop with the law of Moses, or at the boundaries of the Holy Land. Neither does God stop with our church traditions, or at the borders of the United States. The LORD is God of all creation, and chooses whomever he will, even people who are not like us.

Sometimes God chooses people who are very not like us. People who look different, sound different, act different, or express themselves differently than we do. I mean, why would God choose to act through someone who has to be up and moving all the time when she could be acting through me, who is perfectly content to sit quietly and reverently.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my preaching career talking about the wondrous works of God. How when we see the amazing things God is doing in the world, we cannot help but sing praises, and be astounded by the Greatness of our Lord.

I mean, God is the one who spoke creation into existence at the very beginning. God is the one who made Abraham’s childless household into a mighty nation. God brought that nation out of Egypt into a land of milk and honey. Our God sent fire to Mount Carmel to prove Baal a false God, and preserved God’s people through their exile in Babylon, bringing them home again. Then our God became a human being, and walked among us. That same God, who fed the multitude, and performed innumerable healings, died on our behalf, and rose again. I mean, wow! Those are some wonders!

But to use someone who is doing it wrong? Doesn’t God know he has his wonderful servants here at this church to choose from? For generations this way of being the church has ministered faithfully to God’s people. We’ve established thoughtful positions on why we order our worship services the way we do, we’ve considered the needs of our members in our architecture, and now God is going to use someone who isn’t a part of that system? I mean, God is good all the time, but if this is how it’s going to be, I don’t know that I like it all that much. This kind of radical inclusivity, I think that’s utterly wrong.

And so I find myself sitting outside of Ninevah praying with Jonah. ““Come on, LORD! Wasn’t this precisely my point when I was back in my own land? This is why I fled to Tarshish earlier! I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy. At this point, LORD, you may as well take my life from me, because it would be better for me to die than to live.”

God responds with, to paraphrase using that classic southern phrase, “How’s that working out for you?” Jonah pouts, and builds himself a hut to watch the city, hoping that Ninevah will mess up, that Jonah’s view of the world, the view of God as depicted elsewhere in scripture as being unapologetically and exclusively the God of Israel, will be vindicated with a good old fashioned smiting of the sinful citizens of Ninevah.

An unnamed shrub grows up overnight, and provides Jonah with some lush greenery. Scripture tells us that it “[provides] shade for his head [saves] him from his misery. Jonah was very happy about the shrub.” Perhaps he interprets this divine providence as a comfort under which he can wait out the coming destruction of Ninevah, that great city. After all, this indicates that God doesn’t intend to take Jonah’s life from him, so surely that means that God has come to his senses and is going to give Ninevah what they deserve. I imagine he smiled smugly to himself right up until “God provided a worm the next day at dawn, and it attacked the shrub so that it died.” 

The LORD God, who is merciful and compassionate, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy, looked at his petulant prophet sitting outside the city, and through that comforting shrub reminded him of what was really at stake.

The LORD God is very patient even with his crotchety church. Perhaps the decline of mainline protestantism is a like Jonah’s shrub: a reminder that God can choose Ninevah as well as Jonah, God can choose the Gentile Christians as well as the Jewish Christians, that God can choose both us and them.

Though we never hear Jonah’s answer to the question God poses, the third act of this play is staged in our own lives. How will we respond to God’s question: This thing you “pitied” was not something for which you worked, it’s not your creation, it was mine, and is fleeting.

“Yet for my part, I cannot pity Ninevah, that great city...?” I can’t use these people whom I have created to work my will in the world? I have called them and given them the Holy Spirit, just as I did you, and yet you choose to neglect them? Why then should I not have mercy upon them? They are created by the one God who speaks into being things which do not exist, and exactly as worthy of God’s love as we are.

Because if we are honest with ourselves, we have not done a great job of keeping the commandments we have been given. The fact that the Christian Church is as fragmented as it is testifies to our lack of love for one another across our history. The “good old days” were perhaps not as good as the nostalgic stories we tell indicate. 

Peter, who stuck his foot in his mouth consistently throughout the earthy ministry of Jesus, gets it. “Why then are you placing a burden on the shoulders of these disciples that neither we nor our ancestors could bear?” Because if it were up to us to earn the righteousness in which we are wrapped, we would never even get close. We are David’s fallen tent, a people given a covenant who simply do not have it in them to hold up their end.

I think we sit with Jonah in stubborn judgement over God’s merciful treatment of Ninevah because we are afraid that maybe if God loves people who are not like us, that means that God has noticed how full of sin we are, and has given up on us. We create and us and them to keep those others separate from God’s blessings in case it might run out and we be left up to our own failing devices. They’ve got to earn it, because we’ve convinced ourselves that we deserve it!

Uh-huh, how’s that working out for you?

“On the contrary, we believe that we and they are saved in the same way, by the grace of the Lord Jesus.” Though they will not live their lives in the same way as we do, though they will not worship in the same way we do, and though God has called them to do things differently than we do, God can, and does, cross all those boundaries, for we are united in the Lord Jesus.

These people are out there, filled with the Holy Spirit, willing to enact the works of God, and who are we to say that because they enact them differently that our churches are not where they can have a home.

We act like Jonah because we have forgotten that we are Gentiles, and a sect of Judaism made room for us within their customs. Choosing not to require us to keep their traditions, but rather allowing God to do a new thing among them through us.

When we look at having to change the way we live as the Church, it’s a scary proposition, and we would perhaps rather that God kept us among our own people, rather than sending us to Ninevah that it might know the graciousness of God. For we are Jonah, and Ninevah, and the fallen tent of David, and the Gentiles who belong to God. It is scary to have to change ourselves. So God changes us by putting people who are different from us in our lives. It is our task, then, in gratitude to God who is making a new creation out of us, to seek out those people and invite them in that we may be changed through them, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Crowd Sourced Exegesis: Luke 7:36-8:3

Proper 6C/Ordinary Time 11C/Pentecost +4C



36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 39Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.’ 

40Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ 

‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ 

41‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii,* and the other fifty. 42When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’ 

43Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’ 44Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 

47Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’ 48Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ 49But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’ 50And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

1Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, 2as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, 3and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

Sermon on the 1 Kings passage mentioned in the video: Just For The Taste Of It

To leave a comment, type your response in the box below. Choose a way to identify yourself using the drop-down menu, Then click "Publish."

Pacifist Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day here in the United States. Which is kind of a weird day for me. It's a day that we set aside to honor persons who have died in the Armed Forces. We do this, of course, by not going to work on Monday and cooking meat over fire. Also, frequently beer is involved. Usually cheap beer. Because 'Merica.

So we celebrate in slightly strange ways. And perhaps a better celebration, which many of my friends on Facebook seem to have done, is to visit local monuments that honor locals who have died while in the Armed Forces.

Seeing those lists of names, especially if some of them share names with you, makes one feel the weight of their sacrifice in a much more real way than putting out a flag one Monday morning.

For folks who are not regular readers (welcome!), I am a pacifist who is highly suspicious of any kind of nationalism, especially in the church. I do not think that the United States is a Christian Nation, or that we have some kind of mandate from heaven to spread our way of life throughout the world. So Memorial Day, when our culture celebrates death as a glorious sacrifice on the altar of freedom, is a little difficult for me to get behind.

For much of my life, the cultural call was to "Support the Troops." I've never had any problem with that. I think it should go beyond bumper stickers and flag-shaped lapel pins to things like veterans benefits and body armor, but that's just me. In my experience, supporting the troops often meant unquestioning support of their mission, whatever it may be. Without naming any specifics, I've got to say there have been some missions on which we have sent our troops with which I disagree.

If "Support the Troops" means that we assume they can do no wrong, then I cannot do that. Soldiers and their commanders are people too, and people mess up. The nobility of soldiers is in their willingness to sacrifice themselves for others. Those who have done so are worth honoring.

But every time a soldier dies, either in combat, or as a homeless veteran on the street, or anything in between, we as a society have failed them. Every time a soldier is burdened with the responsibility of doing violence to another human being, we as a society have failed them. Perhaps our weightiest failure is that rather than paying for our own failures, we ask the military and their families to bear the burden of paying for our lifestyle with their lives.

So perhaps the best way of honoring those who are willing to sacrifice their lives for our national ideals is to no longer ask them to do so.

I am very grateful that there are men and women who are willing to die and to kill for the idea of America, and that the sacrifice of those who have gone before us makes our lifestyles possible. My prayer is that we will not treat the soldier's noble selflessness as a tool to spread our ideology, but as a cost too dear to be asked lightly.

Planted in Praise

Psalm 97:

1The LORD rules! Let the earth rejoice!

Let all the islands celebrate!

2Clouds and thick darkness surround God.

His throne is built on righteousness and justice.

3Fire proceeds before him,

burning up his enemies on every side.

4His lightning lights up the world;

the earth sees it and trembles!

5The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,

before the Lord of the whole world!

6Heaven has proclaimed God’s righteousness,

and all nations have seen his glory.

7All those who worship images,

those who are proud of idols,

are put to shame.

All gods bow down to the Lord!

8Zion has heard and celebrates,

the towns of Judah rejoice,

because of your acts of justice, LORD,

9because you, LORD, are the Most High over all the earth,

because you are so superior to all other gods.

10Those of you who love the LORD, hate evil!

God guards the lives of his faithful ones,

delivering them from the power of the wicked.

11Light is planted like seed for the righteous person;

joy too for those whose heart is right.

12Rejoice in the LORD, righteous ones!

Give thanks to his holy name!

This is the word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Amy Sharp is one of the great saints of the church. She is not famous for miracles, or for mission work, she is one of the great multitude of witnesses who have lived out their faith in ways that proclaim the gospel at all times.

She was a member of my home church, taught Sunday school, volunteered with the Youth Group, and was in worship almost every Sunday. She is also one of the first friends my mother made when my family moved to Morganton.

As Mom’s and Amy’s friendship grew, it became increasingly apparent that Amy was not going to be just Mom’s friend, or my friend Josh’s mom, she also was a mother to me.

During my childhood, my mother leaned heavily on Amy for love and support while she dealt with depression stemming from her childhood. Sometimes this meant going out to lunch together and talking, sometimes it meant playdates at the Sharps’ house while mom had an appointment. Amy was a leader in the village that raised this child of God.

She was my mother’s best friend. Mom, who has resolved her issues, still calls her an angel.

A few years ago, Amy died after a long battle with cancer. I had the honor of attending her memorial service. I took my seat about a third of the way from the front of the sanctuary, next to the outside aisle.

The procession began with my mother’s voice, lifting up an old hymn.

My life rolls on in endless song

Above earth’s lamentation

I hear the real though far-off hymn

That hails the new creation

No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that rock I’m clinging.

It sounds an echo in my soul.

How can I keep from singing?

I was moved, and amazed. Even in the face of the loss of her best friend who had helped her as she walked through her own darkness, my mother could sing of the beauty of God’s rule over all creation.

My mother’s testimony of God’s reign continued into the second verse:

What though the tempest ‘round me roar,

I know the truth, it liveth,

What though the darkness ‘round me fall,

Songs in the night it giveth

Through all the tumult and the strife,

Those freedom bells come ringing,

Since Christ is Lord o’er heaven and earth

How can I keep from singing?

Though she was sitting in the midst of grief, My mother’s choice of opening hymn established a narrative of trust in God’s ability to work wonders that sounded an echo in the souls gathered for the service of Witness to the Resurrection. When we see the wonders of God’s rule in our world, how can respond with anything other than a song of praise. “The Lord rules! Let the earth rejoice! Let all the islands celebrate. Clouds and thick darkness surround God. His throne is built on righteousness and Justice.”

The LORD rules!

This isn’t a generic God that you could find in any ancient bazaar, this is not an abstract God who is here to make us feel better, the LORD who reigns is the one who spoke creation into existence, who brought the Israelites out of Egypt, who spoke through the prophets of Israel and Judah, and accompanied her people into the captivity of Babylon.  The God who rules is the one who wrote the real though far-off hymn that hails the new creation.

This is not an ethereal force who binds us all together, all the rough edges of relationship sanded off so there’s no friction between us anymore. This is the God who argued with Moses and called a large fish to swallow Jonah for trying to run away from his calling. This reigning LORD is the truth that lives though the tempest may ‘round us roar.

“Fire proceeds before him, burning up his enemies on every side. His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees it and trembles!”

And having seen the works of God

How can we keep from singing?

The Psalm continues in verse three with a section where creation testifies to God’s sovereignty. The LORD rules over fire and lightning, and the earth trembles before God’s mighty actions. And though we are told in a proverb that we should build our homes on a rock rather than on sand, even mountains melt like wax before the LORD. Though the mountains are ancient, the strength of their stone foundations pales in comparison to the greatness of God.

Creation sees and testifies to the majesty of the LORD. The lighting, the fire, and the mountains that pass away like melting wax “before the Lord of the whole world” are intimidating images. It would be easier, perhaps, to have a soft, always approachable, easy-going God to worship, who pats us on the head when we show up in our Sunday best, then sends us on our way.

But this is not that god that we sometimes create for ourselves. “Heaven has proclaimed God’s righteousness, and all nations have seen his glory.” One does not earn that reputation by accommodating everyone’s preferences. God’s righteousness establishes justice for all people, and isn’t satisfied with merely making us feel better.

God’s justice through creation rings,

How can we keep from singing.

“All those who worship images, those who are proud of idols, are put to shame. All gods bow down to the Lord!”

We probably would not call ourselves idol worshippers. By the very nature of our presence in this church, we self-identify as following the God to whom this Psalm was written. We know there are plenty of modern Idols that we do not necessarily call gods. There’s always the classic: money. We even half-jokingly call it “The Almighty Dollar.” We know to watch out that money doesn’t become our focus and goal. The same goes for political figures, we know not to mistake political affiliation for faith, while our faith informs our politics, we know that they are still separate. We know better than to get caught up in those idols.

But this Psalm doesn’t just reject the easy idols, and it is easy to overlook the more subtly worshipped images. Not images of a golden calf, but images of who we think we should be. We worship the sneakier images in ways that we may not even recognize.

How about grades for the students? Or for those of us who perhaps wish perhaps that our children were better students? It is easy to cross from seeking to do our best with our gifts into worshipping the image of the perfect college application. Or those of us who have moved beyond the scholastic world may find ourselves substituting our resumé for that college application.

Many times we also bow to the image of the perfect American family, the one where Ma and Pa always smile lovingly at one another and never fight, the one where little brother and big sister always do their chores and speak respectfully to one another and to their elders.

Perhaps we worship the image of someone who has got their life together, who has a handle on everything and is always the helper, never needing help of their own. The rugged individualist who can accomplish anything on their own merits and talents. It’s the worship of that image that answers “How are you?” with “Fine,” or “Good” even when our hearts are breaking, or when we are overwhelmed and drowning.

This church knows better than most what happens when we pretend that nothing is wrong, deceiving ourselves that if we tell no one of our shame that eventually it will just go away. We watched it happen, and felt the pain of that breach of trust.

The perfect application, the all-american family, the ever-strong and independent individual.

If these are the images we choose to follow, we will be put to shame. Because all of these little philosophies and bits, for which we work so hard, bow down before the Lord like the little gods named by the Psalmist. They are subject to the rule of the LORD, and though we may try to convince ourselves otherwise, we too need the sovereign God.

In trusting God alone who reigns,

How can we keep from singing.

In writing this sermon, someone whom I consider a friend and mentor pointed to verse ten, “Those of you who love the LORD, hate evil!/God guards the lives of his faithful ones, delivering them from the power of the wicked,” and asked if it was saying that all one has to do is love God and be in right relationship and all the problems of your life would be solved.

If evil and wickedness have no power compared the the sovereignty of the one who is the Most High over all the earth, why do they seem to have such terrible effects upon us and those whom we love? If fire proceeds before God, burning up his enemies on every side, why do we sometimes find feeling burned? Is there another fire which God has chosen not to put out, or has the God who loves us burned us?

We know that the LORD rules, and we can let the earth celebrate, but we cannot always join in the praise. Because being guarded and protected as one of God’s faithful doesn’t mean that it is easy. It does mean, however, that it is not up to us to solve every problem and shoulder every burden. My mother sang at her dearest friend’s funeral, “Through all the tumult and the strife/Those freedom bells come ringing/since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth/How can I keep from singing?”

Because just as the mountains melt like wax before the one who is Most High over all the earth, so too our pain and suffering can hold no power over us compared to the ability of God to redeem us from the effects of this fallen world. Though our pain is real, it cannot hold our redemption back. We see that truth proclaimed nowhere more powerfully than on the cross, where God suffered and died. The cross where Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” But we celebrate at the completion of this Easter season that the story does not end at the cross, but at the empty tomb!

God made Lament a song of Hope,

How can we keep from singing?

“Light is planted like seed for the righteous person; joy too for those whose heart is right.”

We are not righteous on our own. How could we be? We have fallen too far. But to bridge that gap, God sent Christ into the world to break the power of sin and death and re-establish our righteousness rooted not in our own faithfulness, but in Christ’s. The sovereignty of our God is such that we cannot run away from his eternal love. When we’ve seen the wonder of that sovereign love, we cannot help but to share it with one another. “Light is planted like seed,” and blows like a dandelion through this world, because though the darkness ‘round me fall, a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the light. This is the source of our joy, that the God who loves us will stop at nothing to be with us. And the LORD before whom the mountains melt like wax rules over all that exists, and loves us beyond measure.

Rejoice in God, ye righteous ones

And praise his name most holy

The Father, Son and Spirit reign

How can we keep from singing?

Iconoclasm-clasm

Protestant Churches are, by and large, visually bland.

I've seen some beautiful woodworking in churches, and some lovely architecture, perhaps there's a cross at the front, or some carvings on the pulpit or lectern. But by and large, the walls are pretty bare. There's nothing to look at, the average Mainline Protestant worship service uses exactly one sense: Hearing.

Churches, however, used to be filled with images, some still are. I had the opportunity to visit Holy Apostles Orthodox Church for a wedding a few years ago, and I was absolutely struck by the beauty and fullness of their worship space. Each sense was engaged: hearing of the music, liturgy, and reading and proclamation of the Word; the smells of their incense; the touch of the think carpet on which we stood, and at times sat; the taste of the bread they shared with their visitors as an expression of hospitality; It was one of the most significant worship experiences of my life.

So why are they so different?

A few hundred years ago, someone took a look at the ten commandments, one of which (The first or second, depending on your tradition) says that you shall not make an image of any living thing. Some folks took this more literally than others, resulting in an iconoclasm, or a destruction of images. This happened a couple of times throughout church history, and was always done in the name of ending idolatrous practices.

It left our protestant churches with only the written or spoken word as an acceptable form of expression. This habit has not served us well.

Riding the back of the printing press, we pushed words to the forefront of culture, and the Protestant church has gotten really good at words over the years, championing literacy and poetry for the glory of God.

But we've forgotten that God also created our other senses, and gave us artistic abilities which God expects us to use to glorify God.

Perhaps it is time for a destruction of the idea that images are bad. Perhaps it's time to say demand more than hearing the word, perhaps we are entering a time of iconoclasm-clasm, when we adopt our ancient role as patrons of the arts, knowing that God is not captured in any medium, not even in the words we love so much, but portions of God can be revealed to all our senses: images, smells, textures, tastes, and yes, the sounds of music and the hearing of God's Word for us.

Spanking God's Children

"God's justice gives people not what they deserve, but what they need." - Shirley Guthrie, Christian Doctrine

I used the above line in my sermon yesterday. After worship, during the handshaking period, a congregant came up to me and asked me a question:

"What if what we need and we deserve are the same thing?"

My answer: "Then that's what we get."

I used the Guthrie quotation in the context of receiving grace, rather than punishment for our sins. I think that's a large part of the good news of God. We deserve death, but in Jesus Christ, we are given life instead. That grace empowers us to encounter a world that is still tainted by its own limitations and sins. We can go boldly into the world and know that no matter what happens, God will not give up on us. Grace is a huge part of my theology, and I think it's one of the central traits of Christianity.

But I think from time to time we need a wake-up call.

Just as a loving parent will discipline their children, God's loving judgement is visited upon us. Sometimes, what we need is a taste of what we deserve. We receive that wake up call because we need it, and the fact that it's what we deserve is a coincidence, not a cause. In the same passage on which I preached, Jesus asserts that those who lift themselves up will be brought low. My interpretation of that statement is a warning that from time to time, when we forget that we need God, we will find ourselves faced with a harsh reminder.

I'm not sure of the source, but I have heard it said that the task of preaching is to "comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable." It is not my place to judge who is whom, but I think that both are necessary.

I wonder, Does the Church spoil God's children when it preaches only grace, and omits how badly we need it?

Do Justice (Luke 18:9-14)

Do Justice (Luke 18:9-14) from Joseph Taber on Vimeo.

Luke 18: 9-14

⁹Jesus told this parable to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous and who looked down on everyone else with disgust. ¹⁰Two people went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a Tax-Collector. 11The Pharisee stood and prayed about himself with these words: “God, I thank you that I’m not like everyone else - crooks, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week. I give a tenth of everything I receive.” ¹³But the Tax Collector stood at a distance. He wouldn’t even lift his eyes to look toward heaven. Rather he struck his chest and said, “God, show mercy to me, a sinner.” ¹⁴I tell you, this person went down to his home justified rather than the Pharisee. All who lift themselves up will be brought low, and those who make themselves low will be lifted up.

This is the word of the Lord

Thanks be to God.

I do not yet know the joys of parenthood, and one of the many of reasons I am somewhat wary of those “joys” is the often repeated truism that children are a grandparent’s revenge.

I have no doubt that my parents will love and adore their future, hypothetical, grandchildren. But I have had that awful curse placed upon me, “One day I hope you have a child that is just like you.”

Now my Dad, when my brother and I were very small, did as many young parents do, and called the ones who raised him for advice on a regular basis. Usually the calls were practical. You see, in addition to having raised two sons, my Grandfather is also a medical doctor, and basically knows everything. But on occasions, my loving and patient father would find himself caught in a battle of wills with myself or my brother, and one such event called for a telephone conversation. It’s a conversation that has passed into legend in our family, the time my Dad called Granddaddy and said, “Daddy, my son is the most stubborn, pertinacious, bull-headed person I have ever met.” There was a long pause, and when my Grandfather replied, it began with a sigh, and ended with the grateful prayer, “There is Justice.”

There is justice. We talk about it as a state of being, a trait of the kingdom of God, and in the context of our Micah passage, something we do. God has shown you what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice... The Lord requires you to do Justice.

Justice, when you get what’s coming to you. Justice is when one acts rightly, one is rewarded, and when one acts wrongly, one is punished. We take it as a law of nature that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When the bullied kid turns around and knocks the bully down with one good punch, that’s justice. Isn’t it? We start off in a place where if we are the victim, that means we get to hit back. We didn’t start this fight, but we will finish it, and justice will prevail.

And from that understanding of our own righteousness, we come to Luke’s gospel. Jesus told this parable to certain people who had convinced themselves that they were righteous. Now if y’all are anything like me, as soon as I read that phrase, someone popped into your head. The other political party, the other sports fans, the other social circle, the other, the other, the other, always the other. They’re the ones who look down on everyone else with disgust. They may have the high ground right now, but Justice is on its way.

Jesus begins his parable, “Two people went up to the temple to pray.” Ooh, two people, I’m in the second group I bet, the one that turns out to be right all along, because I’m one of Jesus’s good followers, a faithful disciple, I’m convinced that I’m going to end up on the right side of these two people: A Pharisee and a Tax Collector.

Now we know that the Pharisee’s don’t often end up as the good guys in the stories Jesus tells, so much so that we’ve forgotten how radical these stories are. The Pharisees are the leaders of the faith community to whom Jesus is preaching. In Luke 13, just a few chapters ago, they warn Jesus about a plot against his life. Pharisees aren’t the bad guys by a long stretch. They are the leaders in maintaining their cultural identity in the face of an occupying Roman government.

The tax collector, on the other hand, is the man who stands between an oppressed Jewish people and the occupying Romans, not as a protector of the people, but as one who benefits from the injustice of the system the Romans have imposed. He’s not a popular guy in town. The tax collector sells out his own people to the powerful empire that has Israel under its thumb. He may not be the bad guy, but for the people to whom Jesus told this parable, the tax collector is certainly working for them.

Y’all, I’m going to be honest. In this story, I’m the Pharisee. Maybe that’s why I want so badly for him to be the good guy. Listen to his prayer: “God I thank you that I’m not like everyone else - crooks, evildoers, adulterers, - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of everything I receive.” He’s thanking God for making him an exceptional example of what a faithful follower of God looks like. What else could I want but to be a model Christian, following Christ’s call to love as we have first been loved? I want to be good. Thank you God for giving me the opportunity to go to school and learn about your Word, Thank you God for putting these people in my life so that I could hear your word speaking through them. Thank you God for not making me a crook, an evildoer, an adulterer. Thank you, God, for helping me to do justice.

Would any of us really pray the opposite? “God, please make me more like that other sinful person.” This Pharisee is grateful to God, which is not a bad place to start, but his gratitude is that he can do justice on his own, without God’s help. I’ve heard so many of our private prayers that are bargains with God. “Oh God, if you’ll heal this person, I’ll never speak badly of others again.” “God, if you get me out of this, I’ll never ask you for anything again.” They’re all variations of the same theme, “God, if you give me grace this time, I promise not to need it quite so badly.” When we pray like this, we are saying to God that we are righteous enough that we can somehow pay God back for what God has done for us. “God, I need you to solve this problem for me, but I can do the rest on my own.” Like a willful child crying out that I can do it, even if I clearly cannot, I walk into this church a Pharisee, wanting to stand on my own two feet. Wanting to be the one who stands against the injustices of the world. Grateful for the opportunity and ability to Do Justice as God requires, wanting to do it all by myself.

But then there’s that other character in this story. The Tax collector is burdened by the oppressive system in which he is a participant. He knows he benefits from the way things are right now, and he knows that his people are suffering, and that he has a hand in it. He is not acting justly, because Justice means that he is no longer on top. He has raised himself up by doing business with those who are occupying the promised land. Justice means that our unrighteous tax collector must fall. Jesus doesn’t deny or excuse the sins of the tax collector. They are still sins. We don’t get any indication that he lives his life differently after he goes to temple to pray. His prayer is simple and heartfelt, “God, show mercy to me, a sinner.” He knows he is not worthy of God’s mercy, he won’t even lift his gaze, but all he has left is the hope that maybe, maybe...

Maybe, as one theologian wrote, “God’s justice gives people not what they deserve, but what they need.”

 We do not need to have our righteousness confirmed. We do not need for God to make us happy and fix all our problems. We do not need God to bless us with wealth and power. Because while we may be the Pharisee, wanting to be the one who does the right thing, and wanting to be able to do what God tells us we should do, we are also the Tax Collector. We benefit at the expense of others.

Two complicated characters, the one who does everything right and has convinced himself that he is righteous, and the broken sinner who cannot will himself out of his unjustly won position and knows how badly he needs God’s Grace. Sometimes we’re one, sometimes the other. It’s not cut and dried. It’s not black and white. But it is simple. God’s Grace is what justifies us, not our “righteous living.” God’s grace, as simple as that.

So then do we do nothing? Give nothing? Do we let God’s grace fall upon us without a response? What do you think? God has shown you what is good. God has shown us grace, A grace that we poor sinners need, not the righteous condemnation we so richly deserve. The call to action, the call to “Do Justice” cannot be ignored. To paraphrase James Cone, “What could love possibly mean in an unjust society except the righteous condemnation of everything unjust?”

But the story about my father and Granddaddy didn’t stay with us because Daniel and I were his revenge. The story is important to us because his sigh was colored with a grin that recognized my Dad’s struggle as a new father, and his prayer spoke comforting words that the love we share is stronger even than our stubbornness. There is Justice, and it comes out of the free gift of God’s grace. God is loving, slow to anger, and quick to forgive. God’s justice begins and ends with grace. God’s righteous love is relentlessly transformative, and to resist that transformation is to resist God’s love. 

So we start with God’s irresistible  grace, given freely to undeserving sinners such as ourselves, and from there we are empowered to act. Not because we are no longer sinners, but because we know that when our feeble attempts to enact God’s justice fail, that God’s grace is there to take up the slack, the little we are able to do only goes to show what God is capable of doing. We lift ourselves up, praying about ourselves with these words, “God, thank you for making me so awesome.” We give money that keeps the lamps in the temple burning, money that goes to feed the poor, we rely on our gifts and abilities to convince ourselves that we are righteous.

And in those moments we find ourselves brought low again, standing at distance, unable to meet the gaze of our loving heavenly father, beating our chest and saying “God, show mercy to me, a sinner.” Having made ourselves low, God lifts us up and transforms our pained groans into hymns of praise. For the justice of the Lord flows down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

As we see God take our fallen efforts and reshape them toward justice, we know that we cannot use the gifts God has given us to buy our way into God’s good graces. It is God’s good Grace that has bought us. And in that grace, we are empowered to do what God has shown us is good: To Do Justice, Love Kindness, and Walk humbly with our God.