"Righteous"

 

“Righteous”

Matthew 21:12-32[1]

Most of us have opinions that we believe to be right. That’s a perfectly normal part of being a living, thinking person. There are just some things that make sense to us, and others that don’t make sense. When it comes to matters that are near and dear to the heart, we can often tighten our grip on our opinions. We may even blur the difference between “opinion” and “truth.” Granted, our opinions can be more or less “informed,” but they are nevertheless opinions. Assuming that our opinions are “true” can set us up for some unfortunate conflicts with our fellow human beings. Especially when they also have opinions they believe are “true.”

Again, so far we’re just dealing with normal life. This has been going on as long as there have been people. Things can get a bit dicey when we go from assuming our opinions are “right” to assuming that they (and we who hold them) are “righteous.” That adds another dimension to the problem. When we take that step, not only are those who hold different opinions “wrong,” we may view them as “enemies.” When we see ourselves as “righteous,” it’s not far from seeing those who disagree with us as dangerous. And when we perceive people to be a threat, it becomes easier to attack them.

I think Jesus was addressing this problem in our Gospel lesson for today. It’s no secret that Jesus had a tense relationship with the Jewish religious leaders. In our lesson for today, he “got in their face” about their hypocrisy by driving the merchants out of the temple. Now, we have to understand that the base of power for the Jewish religious leaders was the temple and the synagogue. Part of what that means is that by definition they got to define who was considered “righteous” and who was branded a “sinner.” And of course, in that setup, they were the ones who got to be “righteous,” and they were the ones who got to target others as a “threat.”

So when Jesus dared to criticize the religious leaders on their own turf, they responded in a way that is perfectly predictable. They asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” (Matt. 21:23). This is predictable because they assumed they were the ones whom God had given authority in religious matters, and that Jesus had no such authority. But Jesus saw through their intentions, and so he asked a counter question. He asked them where John got his authority to baptize. He knew they didn’t recognize John’s baptism any more than they recognized his authority. And their response is interesting and instructive.

The “argument” that followed among them showed where their true concern was. They weren’t concerned about the authority of Jesus’ ministry, any more than John’s. They weren’t even concerned about what was true. Their sole concern was about maintaining their power and prestige and about how they looked to the people! So they kept their place firmly on the fence and simply answered, “We do not know.” Now, these are men who were used to answering questions with definitive answers that were to be taken as God’s truth. I would say they rarely, if ever, spoke those words to anyone.

So Jesus told a parable that exposes their hypocrisy. In the parable, a father asks a son to go work in the vineyard and he refuses, but then changes his mind and goes. The father asks his second son to go to work and he says yes, but then doesn’t go. The clear implication is that it’s not always those who make a lot of noise about being righteous who actually practice what they preach. In fact, Jesus told the “righteous” religious leaders that the tax collectors and prostitutes—those who were at the top of their list of “sinners”—were way ahead of them when it came to actually doing God’s will!

For all their presumption of being “righteous” and the pious play-acting that went along with it, they had rejected what Jesus called “the way of righteousness” (Matt. 21:32). What’s more, the people they scapegoated as being “sinners” were actually the ones who believed John and Jesus and accepted the good news of the Kingdom of God they came to preach. The very fact that the leaders considered themselves “righteous” was simply a convenient way for them to keep up appearances with their sham religion by diverting the attention to others. In fact, their whole system of religion was an elaborate self-justification for their self-designation as “righteous.”[2]

This behavior was not the exclusive prerogative of the “righteous” people in Jesus’ day. People of faith throughout the ages have identified others as “sinners” simply as a way of justifying themselves. We all can fall into the trap of deflecting attention away from ourselves so we can keep up the appearance of being “righteous” and avoid facing our own sins. But whenever we use our religion to make ourselves look good at the expense of others, we’re not only hurting them, we’re also hurting ourselves. The more tightly we draw the circle of who is “righteous,” the more pressure we feel to live up to expectations that no one can fulfill. Instead, Jesus offers us God’s full and free acceptance as a gift. When that gift takes hold in our hearts, it no longer matters who is “righteous,” because none of us are!

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[1] © 2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 9/27/2020 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 114: Jesus was “breaking through the vicious circle of their discrimination in the system of values set up by the righteous.” 

Generous to a Fault

 

Generous to a Fault

Matthew 20:1-16[1]

We live in a world where the value of your labor is determined by how much someone is willing to pay for it. If we look at respective salaries for different vocations, it’s rather revealing as to what we value. We pay entertainers and athletes millions of dollars for what they do. But living in a pandemic has highlighted the fact that what we pay those who are truly “essential workers,” who do the jobs that keep our lives going, is meager by comparison. Maybe one of the changes this time will provoke is for us to re-think the way we reward a few for entertaining us and wind up paying those who do the jobs that are truly important much less, sometimes not even enough for them to live on.

Of course, we can be a very generous people. Whenever we are confronted with images of human suffering, we can be “generous to a fault.” Relief efforts for national and international disasters raise millions of dollars. “GoFundMe” drives for individuals in crisis raise tens of thousands. We clearly have the capacity to help those in need in times of crisis. I wonder what it will take for us to realize that many “essential workers” like teachers, police officers, grocery workers, nurses, and many others provide services that are in fact far more valuable than those who entertain us. Maybe it’s time we reevaluate who gets to be “first” in our world, and who is considered “last.”

This is the theme of our Gospel lesson for today. Jesus tells a parable about a man who owns a vineyard. The harvest is ready and he’s anxious to get the grapes out of the field as quickly as possible. So he goes to the market at the break of day to hire day laborers for his field. Then he keeps going back all day long, sending more workers to help with the harvest. When it comes time to pay the workers things take a surprising turn. The vineyard owner instructs that the workers be paid beginning with the last to be hired—and he pays them all the same thing! Those who worked only one hour got a full day’s wage, just like those who put in a full twelve hours!

When those who had worked all day complain, the employer simply insists that he has a right to be generous with what belongs to him. I think a big part of what this parable is about is that in the kingdom of God, the realm in which God’s grace and mercy and love defines life for all people, there is nothing to earn. In a very real sense, we are all “eleventh-hour workers,” regardless of what we may have done. We all receive far more than we deserve. In this kingdom, everyone receives grace, unconditional love, and unfailing mercy equally. And that is true simply because God is generous! As Desmond Tutu puts it, “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more” and “there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”[2]

  On one level, this comes to us as unbelievably good news. But on another level, I wonder if it makes us a bit uncomfortable. When the first are last and the last are first, it upends our expectations that life will follow the predictable pattern that those who work the hardest get the most rewards. The Kingdom of God is a strange one: those who are deemed godless gain entry ahead of those who are supposedly righteous. Little children are the example by which we all must measure ourselves, not those who are accomplished and successful. Those who serve are viewed as the “greatest,” and those who seem to be “great” are in fact viewed as “least.” For those of us who have worked hard all our lives, this may not sound like good news at all! In fact, we may perceive it as a threat to our way of life!

But then maybe that’s part of what this parable is meant to address: we are comfortable with a world in which the first are first and the last are last. Giving everyone the same grace, mercy and love regardless of what they do sounds unsettling. So does the idea that everyone receives God’s blessing equally, regardless of how hard you work. We’re much more comfortable with a life that is based on the principle that you have to work hard to earn your way in life. Those of us who have worked our way to being “first” in this world like having the “rewards” of our labor.

The truth of the matter, according to our Scripture lesson, is that in God’s sight we are all “eleventh hour” laborers. We all receive far more than we deserve. The fact that in God’s kingdom, all people have equal shares means that we all enjoy God’s grace, mercy and love freely and equally. That amazing gift is more than we could ever earn, because we can never do enough to “earn” anything from God! The Bible reminds us that this not only applies to our relationship with God, but to all of life. We cannot claim anything we have as a “reward” for our labor, because all of it ultimately comes from God. If this makes it sound like God is generous to a fault, that should lead us not to object, but to rejoice like the “last” workers in the vineyard did when they received more than they expected!

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[1] ©2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm Ph. D. on 9/20/2020 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time, 32.

Healing Hostility

Healing Hostility

Matthew 18:21-35[1]

It seems that everywhere you look these days you can find hostility. Some of it is very open, even “in your face.” Some of it is more subtle but no less real. It’s not hard to find someone who’s angry about something. And the sad truth is that the hostility is within us as well. All of us have people in our world who “push our buttons.” Sometimes we “go off” in the privacy of our homes, talking to the TV. Or listening to the radio in the car. I think that’s a truth we’d rather not have to face: that we may be part of the problem, not part of the solution. When hostility seems so prevalent, what can one person do?

I’ve seen one man stop a whole line of tanks simply by standing in their way. I’ve seen public officials kneeling in front of angry protesters in a move that seemed to diffuse the tension instantly, at least for the moment. Perhaps the ancient wisdom that “a gentle answer deflects anger” (Prov 15:1, NLT) still holds true. Sometimes, at least. There are times when it seems like hostility and the violence it breeds is like a flood that nothing can stop. But there are times when simple, honest, friendliness can win over even the most stubborn enemy.

In order to be able to take that kind of friendly approach even toward those who are openly hostile to us, we have to find a way to heal the hostility in our own hearts first. I think that’s where our Gospel lesson for today comes in. Jesus teaches Peter to go beyond forgiveness that only goes so far. Rather, Jesus says to practice unlimited forgiveness.[2] That’s quite a tall order for most of us. There are some people who have done us wrong in such a hurtful way that we simply find it impossible to let go our hard feelings. And yet, Jesus doesn’t let us off the hook—he makes it clear that those of us who look to God for unlimited forgiveness must put it into practice in our lives as well.

And to reinforce the point, Jesus tells a parable. A king demands of his servant the settlement of an unimaginable fortune—10,000 “talents,” which would have been several billion dollars in our world. When the servant begs for more time to pay, the king relents and forgives the entire debt. That’s hard for me to fathom! Who forgives that kind of debt? And yet, as the story goes on, the first servant goes out and demands settlement of a much smaller debt: about $10,000. When the second debtor begs for more time, using the exact same words he used, he refuses to even grant him more time to pay. When the King hears about it, he brings the first servant back in and states the obvious: “Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?” (Matt. 18:33). And the point of the story is that we who have known God’s unlimited forgiveness are to extend that to others “from the heart” (Matt. 18:35).

Unfortunately, Jesus doesn’t teach us how to do this. It’s much easier said than done, I find. I’ve learned that I have to get to the place where I can truly understand and even empathize with someone who I feel has done me wrong in order to offer them this kind of unconditional forgiveness. That doesn’t always come easily. In fact, sometimes I have to have an experience where I wind up being in their shoes myself to be able to reach that level of awareness and empathy. Sometimes it has taken me years. Sometimes, it has taken me decades.

There’s a film called The Interpreter that I think illustrates the choice we face. The film is about an interpreter at the United Nations named Sylvia. She tells the story of a rite of forgiveness in Africa called the “Drowning Man Trial.” When someone is murdered, after a year of mourning, the killer is tied up and thrown into a river to drown. The family of the victim then have to choose—if they let the killer drown, they will have justice, but they will spend the rest of their lives grieving. If they save the killer from drowning, their act of saving a life can heal their own grief. I wonder what I would do if faced with that choice!

Whether there is or ever was such a thing as a “drowning man trial,” I think it serves at least like a parable for us: do we forgive as we have been forgiven, and in so doing find healing for ourselves? Or do we nurse our hurt feelings, our hostility, and our anger, and so find ourselves trapped in bitterness? I think most of us would agree that it’s better to come to the place where we can acknowledge that we share a common humanity with those who have done us harm. When we forgive them, we not only take a step towards healing the hostility we may feel. More than that, by changing our own hearts, we put a little more kindness, a little more friendliness, a little more understanding out into the world. And I do believe that the more we do that, the more we can heal the hostility that plagues us all.

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[1] © 2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 9/13/2020 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman NE.

[2] Cf. M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel According to Matthew,” New Interpreters Bible 8: 380, where he observes, “Whoever counts has not forgiven at all, but is only biding his or her time (1 Cor 13:5). The kind of forgiveness called for is beyond all calculation.” 

Little Ones

Little Ones

Matthew 18:1-20[1]

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a soft spot in my heart for children. And as my (now grown) children will attest, my grandchildren have me wrapped around their little fingers. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for them. And that’s generally true of my attitude toward children. I learned when my own children were young that it’s important to say “Yes” to them as often as possible, so that when you say “No” they understand two things. First, that you mean it. And second, that it’s not a rejection of them. That basic approach has carried over to the way I tend to respond to children in general.

I’d say that most of us tend to have a soft spot for children. What’s interesting to me is that this is a relatively recent development in the history of the world. Children were viewed as mouths to feed, as a burden unless they were able to contribute to the work of the household. That view goes back to time immemorial, and there may be some of you who remember that was still true when you were a child. For most of history, children have been among the least and the last and the left out, not the center of attention and affection that we have made them.

I think it’s crucial to understand that if we’re to make sense of our Gospel reading for today. Children were among the least valued people in the world of Jesus. They were also among some of the most vulnerable people in that day, because they had no rights. So when Jesus’ disciples come to him and ask him about who is the “greatest” in the Kingdom of God, his answer is that they are thinking about it all wrong. Instead of trying to be “greatest”, he says that becoming a part of
God’s kingdom means seeking to become “least,” like children were in that day.

I find it instructive that in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus proceeds to speak to his disciples about how they treat the “little ones who believe in me.” Now, given the introduction to this chapter, we might be forgiven if we assume he’s still talking about children. I don’t think that’s the case here. I think he’s talking about all those who were the “least” in his day: the outcasts, the “unclean,” the poor, the foreign residents—in short, all those who were last and left out in Jewish society.

Jesus speaks rather pointedly about how those who follow him are to relate to the “little ones.” He warns them against causing the “little ones” to stumble. I think the idea here is that the worst thing a follower of the kingdom can do is to treat the least and the last and the left out in such a way as to make them feel that God does not think of them as his beloved children. In fact, Jesus uses some uncharacteristically harsh language to warn his disciples that they should do everything possible to avoid causing harm to these “little ones.”

We see the positive side of this in the analogy of the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to go out and find the one who is lost. Rather than shunning the least and the last and the left out, Jesus teaches his disciples to make it their mission in life to seek them out and to bring them back to the place where they can experience God’s love. In fact, Jesus says that this is God’s will: that “none of these little ones should perish.”

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that central idea gets lost in the shuffle of questions about whether Jesus is threatening that his disciples might wind up in hell. Or questions about how we’re supposed to go to fellow believers and be reconciled with them. Or what it means that Jesus says if they will not be reconciled, we’re to treat them like “gentiles and tax collectors.” I think most of that is an exercise in missing the point. The point of this passage is that the quality of our discipleship is measured by the way we treat the “little ones” in our world.

I think that the truth of the matter is that there are all kinds of people in our world who are the “little ones” Jesus spoke of. If you take a good look, you’ll find that there is a lot of pain and suffering. Some people are treated as “least” because of their appearance. Some people are treated as “last” because their life experience doesn’t fit our ideas of what’s “normal.” Some people are “left out” because their position in society prevents them from accessing the luxuries that we consider to be necessities. I could get more specific, but then you might think I’ve stopped preaching and “gone to meddling.”

In fact, I think I would have to say that a Scripture passage like this is positively intended to “meddle” with us. It’s so easy for us to stay comfortable in our own “circles” and not really pay much attention to those who are “outside” or “other.” I think Jesus makes it clear in this passage that if we want to follow him, we simply cannot do that. We must open our eyes and our hearts to those around us who are the least and the last and the left out. If it’s God’s will that not one of them should “perish,” then it seems to me that constitutes a clear call to all of us to embrace all the “little ones” in our world.

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[1] © 2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 9/6/2020 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

Human Things

Human Things

Matthew 16:21-28[1]

Our lives are filled with distractions. I’d say we have more distractions now than ever before, but I also think there have always been activities to occupy ourselves. We fill our lives with distractions primarily because we feel, in the depths of our soul, that we are alone in this world. We may have all the family, friends, and support we could ever want, but we inhabit a space that feels very much like it has a sole occupant: ourselves. Most of us are deeply uncomfortable with that sense of solitude. It feels empty to us; it feels lonely. So we fill up our lives with activities to distract ourselves from that emptiness.

But the truth of our lives is that we are never alone. The promise of Scripture is that God is “God-who-is-with-us.” And the God who is with us is also at the heart of his very being faithful. That means that God will never “fail us or forsake us.”[2] God will always be the “God-who-is-with-us.” And because God is also the “God-who-is-for-us,” we can trust that God loves us, and his love for us never fails. When we truly grasp these truths in the depth of our souls, we can know that we are never really alone. That frees us from the need to fill our lives with “human things” that distract us.[3]

Our Gospel lesson for today speaks to this. Jesus announced to his disciples that his commitment to God’s kingdom meant that he would have to go to Jerusalem to die. And then he proceeded to tell them that if they wanted to be his disciples, they must deny themselves, take up their own crosses, and follow him. Furthermore, he taught them that the only way to truly live is to give themselves away for the sake of others. It’s no wonder that Peter “rebuked” Jesus by saying literally, “May God have mercy on you, Lord!” (Matt 16:22). The idea is that God in his mercy would spare Jesus (and them all) from this fate. That’s why it’s normally translated something like “Heaven forbid, Lord!”

But Jesus knew his path and where it was leading him. And so he rebuked the rebuke, so to speak. He told Peter, “you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things” (Matt. 16:23). What those “human things” were we don’t know for sure, but we can probably guess. Many Jewish people in that day expected the Messiah to overthrow the Romans and ascend to the throne of David. The idea of a Messiah who would sacrifice his life and die simply made no sense to them. And as James and John illustrate, it’s likely that the disciples had their hopes set on the “perks” that would come their way when Jesus took his “rightful place” (in their minds).

Now, of course there’s nothing wrong with setting your sights on doing great things. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with seeking to serve the Kingdom of God. But the problem comes in when we get our “selves” involved. Our desires to achieve are related to filling the void we feel our own hearts. We strive to stay busy in order to validate ourselves in the eyes of others and in our own eyes. And the more intently we focus on our “selves” the tighter that space that we inhabit becomes. Finally, we are trapped by the fear of losing what we have convinced ourselves we absolutely must have in order to be “okay” with ourselves. We are trapped by “human things.”

But as Jesus warned his disciples, when we try to “save” our lives in this way we only wind up losing them! When we get trapped in the prison of our own self-interest, our own needs, and our own fears, it becomes a place that robs us of life itself. All the ways in which we try to fill the void we fear only close the trap around us more tightly. The harder we try to cling to these “human things,” the more we confine ourselves to that trap that robs us of life. We only truly discover the life that God gives us when we finally and fully understand that God is with us always, and that God loves us fully forever. When we understand that the fundamental truth of our very existence is that we are deeply loved by God, then we can let go all the things we cling to so tightly and open ourselves to God’s presence. Then we can see all the “human things” we use to fill our lives for the empty pursuits that they are, and instead find the true meaning of our lives in the love of God which never lets us go!

In some respects, this is only a matter of truly finding our way out of our own distractions and learning to love God with all that we are. When that deep, deep love of God becomes for us the truth that sets us free, we find that the door to the trap is opened, and we can live our lives and love those around us and serve God and others with hearts full of joy. We find our lives when we lose them for Christ’s sake. We find our lives when we find them filled with God’s love. We learn to truly live when we let go the “human things” that haunt us and entrap us.

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[1] © 2020 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, Ph. D. on 8/30/2020 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Deuteronomy 31:6, 8; Joshua 1:5; Hebrews 13:5.

[3] Cf. Henri Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing, 43-47, 67.