Everything Else Is Commentary

'When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “’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. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”'

--Matthew 22: 34-40

If I were to ask y’all which Amendment to the US Constitution is the greatest, what might your answer be? Maybe the first: freedom speech, of the press, of the right to practice whatever religion you want – even if it’s none at all? Or the 13th: the abolition of slavery? In this part of the country the 19th – suffrage for women – might be the popular choice. Based on many of the bumper stickers I see, though, I have a feeling the 2nd would probably win out. As heated as that debate might get, so too have been the arguments amongst rabbis through the centuries about the commandments of Torah.

On the Tuesday of the last week of his life, Jesus was asked by a lawyer – Oh those lawyers! – which of the commandments was the greatest. This wasn’t an unusual request. There are, after all, 613 Commandments in the Torah – that’s a lot more than 10 – and those debates about which was the most important were commonplace.

The Talmud—which is a kind of companion and commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures and laws – includes a story about a Gentile who approaches a well-known rabbi named Hillel, who died just six years before Jesus was born. The Gentile asks him to recite the whole of Torah—the whole of the Law—while standing on one foot.  He expects the rabbi to dismiss him or call him crazy for making such a request, but Rabbi Hillel puts one foot behind him and says, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.  That is the whole Torah, while the rest is commentary thereon; go and learn it.” 

An artist's depiction of Rabbi Hillel the Elder.

When Jesus is asked a similar question, he actually gives two answers. He first quotes the Shema, the ancient Jewish declaration of the oneness of God – which is found in Deuteronomy 6: 5: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” Jesus adds mind to the list. The Shema is THE foundational statement of the Jewish faith because it asserts that God and God alone is the supreme power and the only one worthy of our praise and worship. Our Jewish siblings to this day open all prayer with the Shema and mount it on doorposts in containers called mezuzots and on their arms and heads in boxes called tefillin or phylacteries.

This would’ve been enough for the lawyer, but Jesus does one better. He adds the second half of Leviticus 19: 18 – “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” -  calling it the second commandment. For those of you who know your list of 10 Commandments – and I’m sure you do – you’re no doubt saying to yourselves, that’s not the 2nd Commandment; it’s “You will not make nor worship any graven image.” Connecting these two passages from two different texts of the Torah is a brilliant move from Jesus. Do you see what he does here? He explicitly connects love of God with love of neighbor. You cannot have one without the other.

If you know your Synoptic Gospels – and I’m sure you do – you may recall that in Luke’s version of this encounter, the lawyer responds by asking, “Who, then, is my neighbor?” Jesus’ answer is, of course, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the oxymoronic story in which the exemplar of neighborly love is one of those traitors to the faith and heritage of the Jewish people because they had intermingled and married foreigners during the takeover of their land by the Assyrians centuries before. So let that sink in.

The implications for this text on our lives right here and now are pretty significant. We cannot love God without loving our neighbor, it seems so obvious and simple that it’s kind of a Christian cliché; after all, at our 7:30 Rite I Eucharist we recite this exact quote, this Summary of the Law, by Jesus each week – albeit in 16th century English. But what does it really mean and look like for us now? Were not the people shot at a bowling alley in Maine this week not neighbors of the man who gunned them down? Are not Israelis and Palestinians – Jews, Muslims and Christians alike – not neighbors of one another? What do we even mean when we talk about loving God and loving our neighbor in the midst of such madness, especially when those in positions to actually do something about it shrug their shoulders, quote their favorite amendment, and insist Jesus himself wouldn’t or couldn't do anything?  

This is one of those moments when I feel compelled to complain about the English language and its limitations. We only have one word for love, and we use it all the time – “I love my spouse. I love my dog. I love the Bills. I love lamp.” The Greek language, the language in which the Gospels were written, has seven words for love. The one, perhaps, with which the majority of us are familiar, is agape, which doesn’t have a clean, direct English equivalent. Agape frequently implies cherishing with reverence, rather than affection. It’s a higher love than, say, eros, which is romantic in nature. It’s agape that Jesus uses; in fact, it’s always the word Jesus uses when he talks about love. It’s the kind of love that sees the imago dei – the image of God - in another human being and connects it back to the Shema, to the acknowledgment and love of God That kind of love is deeper than feeling, deeper than words. It is active and alive, and anything but passive and quiet. The love Jesus talks about is the kind of love that is inspired, that takes to the streets, that cries out with the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord?!” and then looks for ways to help. Even when our neighbors don’t love us, this is how we act in reply, with love rooted in non-violent resistance. But what do we do when we cannot do the first part – love our neighbor – because we can’t even do the second part – love ourselves? 

The truth is that we cannot love God or our neighbors without first loving ourselves because to love ourselves is to love the imago dei that stars back at us in the mirror. Sadly, for those who have been caught in cycles of abuse – mental, emotional, and physical – loving oneself can be extremely difficult, if not impossible. We humans are relational creatures, and we cannot dig deep down inside ourselves to find love if someone isn’t out there mirroring it back to us. Too often we hear the stories: mass shooters who are ostracized, mocked, abused, or lonely, and feel they have no other recourse but violence. Even in the Holy Land, Palestinian terrorists like Hamas or Islamic Jihad attack Israeli citizens because the Israeli government maintains an apartheid state upon Palestinian citizens. Hurt people hurt people, it’s been said many times. But healed people also heal people.

Agape love is a love that passes human understanding and is the only thing that can heal a disparaging world. Many times, I’ve heard folks read this Gospel or hear a sermon preached on it and say, “It really is that simple, just love one another. Wow!” But it’s not simple. Love isn’t simple – none of the seven Greek words for love are! Love as deep, as broad, as high, as passing thought and fantasy as agape love takes effort, sweat, tears, and more than a little pain. 

This is what the cross shows us, love in the midst of suffering and death. The cross is where heaven and earth meet…and so is this altar, the Holy Table, where love is poured out, where we feel it in our hands and taste it on our lips. This love is food and drink for our journey into a chaotic and crazed world where neighbors don’t even know each other, let alone love each other. 

But we know love, don’t we? Because at this Table the love of God is mirrored to us in Bread and Wine, so that we can mirror it to our neighbor. We know healing comes not from pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps and trying to go it alone, but rather from love found in Communion - the kind we receive at the Table and the kind made up of people; a body of folks who are just as wounded but also just as hungry for that kind of love. We need that kind of love that is known is the sharing of broken bread and the mending of broken hearts. Nothing else can heal this world but that kind of love for God, for neighbor, and for ourselves. Everything else is commentary

The Third Way: There's Always a Choice

'The Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.'

--Matthew 22: 15-22

At this time of year one of my favorite traditions is the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Halloween Special. Among the very best of these came in 1996, just ahead of that year’s presidential election. In the episode it was revealed that the two candidates – Bill Clinton and Bob Dole – were, in fact, aliens bent on conquering Earth. When the big reveal comes the people of Springfield are mortified, but the aliens point out that there’s nothing they can do, it’s a two party system and they have to vote for one of them. The people look around and mutter to each other, "They're right! It's a two party system!" and after one of the aliens wins – does it matter which? – the people are enslaved and the world falls apart. It’s not like they had a third option, right? Right?

From The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror VII 

We operate much of our lives from a two-party system, an either/or mentality, without considering that there might be a third way. Jesus wasn’t about either/ors. He never said that someone was with him or against him. He never operated out of a binary. So often he was put in positions where folks tried to force him to make a choice between only two options, but oh so often Jesus would get creative, throw them a curveball, and offer a third way that no one had considered before. Granted, this meant Jesus made enemies on both sides, but his example of finding a creative third way continues to be one of his most impactful teachings for us today.

In our Gospel texts from the previous three weeks, we’ve heard Jesus using parables to answer a question from the Pharisees concerning where his authority came from. Now that he has totally not answered their question, we find the Pharisees today aligning themselves with the Herodians in an attempt to trap Jesus.

Let’s pause for some context. The Pharisees were the folks who desperately tried to hold on to their faith and its practices in the face of Roman occupation. They were anything but pro-Roman, and they strictly observed the Law of Torah as a sort of defiance against Rome. The Herodians, meanwhile, were a group of Jewish folks who were totally ok with Roman occupation. They got their name from their loyalty to Herod, a puppet of the Roman government who had been put “in-charge” of the region of Judea and given the title “King of the Jews.” The Pharisees and Herodians had no love for each other, but hey, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

So they come at Jesus as a kind of tag-team. And after buttering him up a bit – “you’re sincere”, “you show no partiality.” – they ask him if it’s lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not. 

This may come as a surprise to a more educated modern audience, but folks didn’t like paying taxes back then. The question seems legit, and at the same time volatile. Ever since this area had been added to the Roman Empire in 63 BC, Rome had required a large annual tribute from the Jewish people, which was collected by local authorities through an assortment of taxes.  Folks were itching to hear Jesus’ answer, probably hoping that he’d give them some kind of out.

But the question isn’t sincere. The two groups just want him to pick their side, knowing both chooses spell trouble. If Jesus says no and sides with the Pharisees, he’ll be charged with sedition and arrested, having said the quiet part out loud. If he says yes and sides with the Herodians, he risks losing his credibility with the crowd, who for both economic and religious reasons resented Roman occupation and taxation on their land. Taxes to the emperor implied that he owned the land, but Torah was clear that all land is God’s, and that we are just tenant farmers – that’s Leviticus 25: 23. What’s Jesus to do? Gotta pick one or the other, right?

But Jesus does something unexpected and offers a third option. He asks for a coin, which his interrogators produce. He looks at it and asks, “Whose head is this and whose title?” Their answer, of course, is the emperor’s. This move by itself shames them. You see, in Judea at this time, there were two types of coins : one type, because of the 2nd Commandment, bore no graven images of people or animals, while the other type, used by the Romans, had such images. The denarius featured the head of the current emperor – in this case, Tiberius – with the title “Son of God.” No self-respecting Jewish person would’ve carried the second coin, and thus Jesus exposes them as part of this collaboration system that kept both the religious and Roman authorities in power. If it’s got the emperor’s face on it, give it back to him; otherwise, give to God what belongs to God; after all, it may be the emperor's coin, but it's Jesus title! Their trap is evaded by Jesus’ brilliant rhetorical strategy, and they leave amazed.

Render unto Caesar art from the English School.

Some of y’all may have heard this passage preached as a kind of establishment by Jesus of what we might call a separation between church and state. Christians have had a tendency to read it that way, as if Jesus is telling us that we have to split ourselves between our so-called secular and sacred lives. The 20th century theologian William Barclay, for whom I hold a lot of respect, wrote that the Christian had a dual identity as a citizen of both earth and heaven, and should pledge allegiance to earthly authorities because of the provisions and protections they provide while also praying to God. This, however, creates a kind of  psychological splitting within us, which can – and often does – lead to justifying some pretty bad behavior: consider Christians in the 1930s that acquiesced to dictators or those today who decry peaceful protests, all because they’ve been told that Jesus says to obey whatever the civil authorities tell us to do. But that splitting between secular and sacred lives is a modern construct – the truth is that there is no such distinction, it’s all sacred because it’s all from God.  What, then, is Jesus trying to teach us now?

This is one of those Gospel moments that is tough to apply to our time due to the specific context of the Pharisees’ and Herodians’ positions, the occupation by Rome, and the ancient Jewish relationship to foreign political powers. None of these really apply to our modern context. Besides, Jesus doesn’t even give a real answer to the question about taxes because that wasn’t the point of the encounter. If you were looking for either a justification for loyalty to the state or an excuse to not pay taxes, you’re outta luck this week. There must be a third option for how this text can apply to us now.

As I see it, the Good News that lies in this text is the fact that Jesus finds a creative third way. Bombarded by people who insisted he had to take an either/or stance, Jesus doesn’t bite. And right now, in so many facets of our lives, we are hit with that rhetoric. You’re either with our team or the other one. You’re either a fascist conservative or a godless liberal. You’re either one of us or one of them. Gotta pick a side, right? Not like we have another choice.

But we do. We have the choice of finding the third way. Because that’s the path where we’ll find Jesus. Not on one side of an issue, blaming the people on the other side, but being with the people caught in the middle. That’s where Jesus is. That’s the third way. Whenever we get caught up in either/or thinking, we need to be more like Jesus. We need to find our third way and discover an option that we had not thought possible before. The key to doing so is creativity, wonder, and imagination. There is, in every scenario, in every argument, in every debate, in every question of life, a creative third way. And that’s the way of Jesus. The way of love. What does it look like for you?

Which Banquet?

'Once more Jesus spoke to the people in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his slaves, ‘The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, and he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.”'

--Matthew 22: 1-14

There is an old proverb found in many cultures that highlights one key difference between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of heaven. In the kingdom of this world there is a great banquet, filled with all sorts of succulent foods. People of all kinds are gathered around the table at this banquet, only there is one problem: the spoons and forks are 3-feet long. The people grumble and complain, as they try to use the extended utensils to feed themselves, finding it utterly impossible to do so, as they hit each other in the face with the elongated utensils. Meanwhile, in the kingdom of heaven, there is also a great banquet, filled with all sorts of succulent foods. People of all kinds are gathered around the table at this banquet, only there is one problem: the spoons and forks are 3-feet long. The people, however, look across the table at one another and laugh, and then use those extended utensils to feed one another. To which banquet, it is often asked, do we find ourselves? Depends on how we use the utensils provided.

The Kingdom of Heaven (left), and the Kingdom of This World.

The imagery of a banquet or great feast has long been associated with the coming of God’s kingdom. The prophet Isaiah, preaching in the midst of exile, foresees a day when God will make for all peoples a banquet of rich foods and well-aged wines, as God wipes away the tears from all sorrowful faces and takes away all shame. In the parable we just heard from Matthew’s Gospel – the last of three parables Jesus has offered in as many weeks – the kingdom is compared to a banquet to which those who were invited didn’t show up, but the king – God – is determined that the hall should be filled, and has attendants to go into the streets to bring in every kind of person, “good” and “bad”, all to enjoy the feast. 

For the earliest Christians the banquet wasn’t just an allegory for the kingdom but an integral part of their own communal identities. Hal Taussig in his book In the Beginning Was the Meal points out that the worship we would come to call the Eucharist, Communion, and the Liturgy, was a continuation of the Greek symposium, the dinner parties that were regularly conducted among groups of like-minded individuals. What made the Christian version different was that, as Dr. Taussig puts it, the presence of poor and hungry people at meals was clearly a deeply held position in the Christian communities, and as folks of from every walk of life ate together, they prayed and told stories and worshipped God until, eventually, we get something that looked an awful lot like what we do today. Simply put: this right here is a banquet hall, and this is the feast to which all are invited, the feast of the world’s redemption.

The Greek symposium depicted on an ancient vase.

Knowing how important the banquet meals were can help us understand why it matters that Jesus uses this imagery to talk about the kingdom. We had a mini-Bible study around this Gospel at a clergy gathering last week, and I’ll be honest, many of us really struggle with this story. Why does the king have to be so harsh? What is with all of this talk of being cast out, with the weeping and gnashing of teeth – Matthew loves that, for some reason? Who’s the guy without a robe? And why does that even matter? Where, O where, is the Good News?

What we are seeing in these parables over these last three weeks is the nadir, the low point of a family feud between the religious authorities and Jesus. The severity of the language being used in the Gospel can be linked to what was going on in the real world when the Gospel was written – namely that the Temple and Jerusalem had been destroyed and folks were angry, scared, and looking for someone to blame. Matthew’s Gospel, unfortunately, tends to read as if the Jewish authorities, and thereby the Jews themselves, were the responsible party, even though this is a gross misunderstanding, albeit easier than trying to explain the complexities of the situation. 

And, again, I’ll be honest. As a preacher I find it downright irresponsible to not somehow address what we have all witnessed going on in Israel-Palestine and the Gaza Strip over the past week. Some, in order to avoid explaining the complexities of that situation, might offer some grossly misunderstood reading of Israeli-Palestinian history. If you’re looking for an easy explanation from me, I don’t have one, and I sincerely believe anyone that says they do don’t really understand the situation. We are seeing, as in the days of Matthew writing this Gospel, the nadir, the low point of a family feud between our siblings in the Abrahamic traditions. While it is perhaps an oversimplification, this is a part of the world that, for the better part of ¾ of a century has looked like the banquet where the folks have tried to use the 3-ft. spoons to feed themselves, resulting in a lot of frustration, heartache, and death.

Jesus don’t like killing, no matter what the reason’s for. John Prine sang that, and he was a preacher, albeit an itinerant one. And while I agree with the late-great Mr. Prine, I also know that it is certainly not the place of Christians to tell our Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers that Jesus has the answers, but it is to Jesus that we are drawn to seek for ourselves some kind of solace, some kind of meaning in the absurdity of what is happening – certainly this is what our Palestinian Christian family members are doing right now, particularly at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, which is a ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and suffered a horrendous attack that killed 500 people this past Tuesday evening. Where is Christ? Where is the banquet? What do we do?

A scene from the aftermath of an attack on the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. Image courtesy of the Palestine Chronicle.

It's important for us to always remember that Jesus is right there in the midst of suffering. Jesus is the first to cry when a building is toppled onto a house or a rocket smashes into a school. The crucified Christ took with him all the sufferings of the world, not only up onto the cross but down into hell itself, which is precisely why we find him in our own moments of suffering, our own personal hells. Not necessarily fixing the problem. But suffering alongside. And it’s important to keep in mind that while preachers – myself included – have equated the banquet in the parable with Sunday morning church worship, and the person who doesn’t put on the wedding robe with the person or persons who think all they need to do is just show up and not actually take responsibility, Jesus wasn’t talking about church attendance. He was talking about the kingdom, that’s what the banquet in the parable symbolizes, and just like the early Christian banquets emphasized the welcome of the poor, the hungry, the outcast, God will bring everyone – Israeli, Palestinian, Jew, Muslim, Christian, agnostic, “good”, “bad”, us, them, everyone – into the joys of that kingdom, that banquet that cannot be halted by bombs or rockets. 

As we say where I come from, y’all means all…y’all, and all y’all have a seat at that banquet, even the ones you might be surprised to see there, and the ones who might be surprised to see you. 

This past Sunday our lectionary selected Psalm 23, which we read together. How fitting! No doubt, at the same time that we were reading and praying that Psalm, there were folks hunkered down in Gaza and Israel-Palestine doing the same. Right there in the literal valley of the shadow of death, people were praying to remember that God is their shepherd, that God has set a banquet before them, even in the midst of their troubles, hoping to recall God’s mercy all the days of their lives. We hold them all in our hearts. The parish in which I serve opened its doors all day on Tuesday to observe a day of fasting and prayer at the urging of the Archbishop of Jerusalem. And so we gathered and prayed together.  Saint Augustine of Hippo said that we should pray as if everything depended upon God and work as though everything depended upon us. What is the work before us? I don’t know for sure, perhaps it is to pray, to listen, to educate ourselves, and emphatically call for an end to the killing. Maybe if we, as Desmond Tutu said, do our little bit of good in our little corner, we can somehow make this world look more like the banquet where we use those elongated forks and spoons to feed not ourselves, but each other. 

From Rejection to Transformation

'Jesus said, “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. 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, killed 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.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 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 fruits of the kingdom. The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

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

--Matthew 21: 33-46

I started this blog in 2014 as a repository for my sermons, so that folks could read them if they missed a Sunday. For anyone who may be new and isn't familiar with my favorite hobby, the name of the blog - Father Prime - and its subtitle - "Wishing and working for a world transformed." - are references to the Transformers, those robots in disguise from the 1980s that turn into planes, cars, animals, and a whole host of other things. More than once they've been helpful in my preaching and teaching as a priest, and this past Sunday was another such example.

The very first commercial for the Transformers back in 1984 began with the line, “It is a world transformed, where things are not as they seem.” I’d like to think that that line, the idea of transformation, the potential for change, got lodged way down deep in my subconscious as a child of the 1980s and eventually led me to a calling, a lifestyle in which I remind myself – and others – that human eyes don’t always see the world the way God does, that there is more to this world than meets our own eyes.

Promotional poster for the Transformers from 1984. Image courtesy of the TFWiki.

The way things seem is not always the way things are. This, I believe, is what Jesus means when he tells us that we must have eyes to see and ears to hear, to see, hear, and know that which is in harmony with God’s own dream for this world; a dram of shalom (peace) and hesed (justice). To be sure, Jesus had the eyes to see and ears to hear; Jesus saw that this was, in fact, a world transformed by what he called the Kingdom of Heaven, which, as he said, has already come near, has already given us a glimpse of the God’s dream of peace and justice, even if it hasn’t yet reached its fulfillment.

An individual who understood on a deep level that the Kingdom was here, and who dared to see the world with a kind of transformed eyes, was Francis of Assisi, in whose honor St. James' Church held its first Blessing of the Animals this past Sunday. Last week the parish brought back its Healing Eucharist at noontime on Wednesdays, and – wouldn’t you know who won the pony? – it just so happened to be the Feast of St. Francis that day. We heard once more the story of Francis' extraordinary life: he was born into a wealthy merchant family, heard God say ‘rebuild my church” and thought he should use his money to literally repair and restore a damaged building, but then when he realized God meant the church with a big C, he gave away everything he had and lived the nomadic life of a bootleg preacher. Francis stirred up trouble, like Jesus before him. He saw things differently; saw them the way God sees them. He called the sun his brother and the moon his sister. He preached to the birds and brokered peace between the villagers of Gubio and a wolf that was terrorizing them because it was hungry. Francis and his sister Clare modeled something for us, which is so radical in its simplicity: that everything belongs.

An image of Francis of Assisi from Camberwall Parish.

Richard Rohr followed in Francis’ footsteps and became a Franciscan friar and has written dozens of books and while he doesn’t have a blog like a I do, he sends out a daily meditation from the Center for Action and Contemplation, which he founded in Albuquerque in 1987. One of his books is called Everything Belongs, and he says in it that “only when we rest in God can we find the safety, the spaciousness, and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, more than we are.” This comes when we see the world with the same eyes as a Francis, as Jesus, who reminds us in this parable that that which we may reject, that which may seem unworthy or unlikely, is, in fact, a new foundation on which God is doing something beautiful and holy.

Franciscan friar and author Richard Rohr, who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation.

The familiar line “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” comes from Psalm 118. Hearing the story in the context of Jesus’ confrontations with the religious authorities, we may be prone to think that the parable’s saying that, while the authorities had rejected Jesus, God had not, and that therefore God had taken the gift of the Kingdom – the vineyard in the parable – away from them, the “wicked tenants.” Yet we must resist any urge to read such judgment here. The idea that God took something away from the children of Israel and gave it to the followers of Jesus is a heresy called supersessionism, and it is a harmful, sinful way of thinking, though too many preachers have preached on this parable suggesting just that. On behalf of such preachers, I am sorry.

At the core of this parable isn’t an argument between religious traditions but is a lesson about how some, especially those in positions of power and authority, can be so blind to not see how God can and does transform this world, taking that which seems unimportant and making it central.

The Resurrection of Jesus is proof enough that God can and does do this, but it’s not just in such bold, outward expressions. Living fully into this transformed world is both an inner and outer journey and requires both inner and outer work. In my experience, church folk are great at the latter, but it’s the former that’s a bit tricky, the work on ourselves from the inside-out. And so, just as Jesus illustrates for the religious authorities God’s ability to take a rejected stone and make it the corner for something new and majestic, what parts of yourself have you rejected that God might be using to transform your life and the lives of those around you?

What aspects of ourselves, of each other, do we most discard and cast off? What character traits seem unusable, unreliable? What if the rejected parts are meant to become the cornerstone of our next beginning? 

To trust God fully is to trust the totality of our lives, the complex layers of each of us, and all of us together. Every single one of us has something to offer, in spite of our feelings of inadequacy. We are God’s partners in creating this holy realignment, this world transformed. Rejection itself is rejected! Because when we reject ourselves and believe we have nothing to offer, nothing anyone would want to hear, no gift that could do any amount of good, we reject Christ who dwells in us and among us. To love Christ, and to love everyone around us, begins with loving ourselves and realizing that every part of us belongs.

That radically simplistic principle is at the core of our theology of stewardship, not as something required or forced upon us like dues paid to a country club, but instead as something we do freely, as a way of showing our gratitude for what God has done and will do, through our time, our talents, and, yes, our treasure. Stewardship isn’t a season of the church, but a way of being year-round. And it starts with realizing that even when we think we have nothing to offer, God says otherwise. When we feel like the stone that has been utterly rejected, God has a use for us. We should not always be so sure that we know how everything will turn out, when God has proven time and again, that things which were cast down are being raised up, and that what was once old is being made new, and that all things are coming to fulfillment – being transformed – by Christ, who is alive in us and through us, and calls us all to see our that no matter who we are, no matter how much we reject the parts of ourselves that we deem unworthy, God calls us to tend this vineyard, build this Kingdom of justice, love, and mercy, knowing that we all have a place and everything and everyone belongs. 

Emptying Ourselves, Casting Out Fear

'When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And he said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.'

--Matthew 21: 23-27

When I was a kid one of the most terrifying comic book villains I knew was the Scarecrow, who is a member of Batman’s rogues gallery that specializes in fear.  He doesn’t have any supernatural powers, instead Scarecrow preys on the people’s everyday fears and exploits them for his gain.  As a kid I had nightmares about the Scarecrow because the weapon he utilized was the most real weapon of all, the weapon of fear.  It’s incredibly powerful. Arachnaphobia – fear of spiders; acrophobia – fear of heights; pellebaphobia – fear of umbrellas. 

The Scarecrow

Our fears lead us to make decisions we later regret, they become a form of self-sabotage, and they prevent us from living our truest, most authentic lives, which are the ones most firmly rooted in the grace, mercy, and love of God. The most common fear, as I’ve seen it among church folks, especially those of us in positions of authority and influence is atychibobia, the fear of losing a sense of control.

The Gospels are perhaps our best example in Scripture of what happens when people are so gripped by the fear of losing control. The authorities who often confronted Jesus were 

religious fundamentalists who were terrified of losing their control as they watched the rapidly changing spiritual landscape around them. John the Baptist embodied their fears, since he was part of a group called the Essenes, who had retreated from the cities and cried out for people to repent of their sins out in the wilderness through the mikvah, the Jewish ritual bath otherwise known as baptism. Those on the margins liked this raving madman because he spoke truth to power, but the ones in power were scared to death of losing that power, that control.

Saint John the Baptist

Their fear gets called out by John’s cousin, Jesus, on his last trip to Jerusalem. They didn’t want to lose their positions of status and privilege, but they also wanted to be seen as caring about the people, so they tried playing both sides. When Jesus asks them if John’s baptisms were of human origin or divine, they are too afraid to say anything; afraid of Jesus’ judgment if they say it was from heaven, and afraid of the crowds if they say it was not. Either way, they risk losing their control, so they say nothing.

Do you know the last six words of a dying church? “We’ve always done it that way?” The fear that things might change – metathesiophobia – is largely rooted in being afraid of losing control. The existential dread is back-backing, but it’s a burden of our own making. Many a church community closes its doors or disbands because the fear of changing, of losing control, is just too great. 

We often look at the landscape of Christianity these days and wonder if it’s ever been this ugly, this toxic. It has, actually. For the first three centuries after Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, there were few things gathered assemblies of believers could agree upon. The communities to which St. Paul wrote were in these sorts of situations. They were often very diverse, made up of Jewish believers and Gentile converts. Like churches today, they had their cliques, their silos that folks would gravitate toward. They had their strong personalities and folks who insisted that they had to do everything otherwise the whole system would collapse. They too had folks who were afraid to lose control.

Paul offered them a solution. He called it kenosis, which is a Greek word meaning to empty oneself, and in his letter to the  Philippians, Paul offers a hymn to Jesus’ own self-emptying and calls on the community of believers in Philippi to do the same:

'Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God 

as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave, 

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

he humbled himself 

and became obedient to the point of death-- 

even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him

and gave him the name 

that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bend, 

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue should confess

that Jesus Christ is Lord, 

to the glory of God the Father.'

--Philippians 2: 5-11

But what does that mean? How do we empty ourselves?

The first step to truly embodying the kenosis of which Paul speaks is to recognize our own power, our own sense of and desire for control and being willing to imagine what would happen if we surrendered that; Jesus, after all, was perfectly aware of his, power, his divine nature, but he still chose to humble himself, to give up his sense of control, so as to lift others up. Jesus didn’t have to live this way, but he chose to, so that others would imitate him in giving up our power and need for control for the sake of the other. In the Zulu language this is called ubuntu.

The 2009 General Convention of the Episcopal Church used ubuntu as its theme, and several other diocesan conventions followed suit. The word doesn’t have a direct English translation, but it roughly means “I am because you are.” Ubuntu is the remedy to atychiphobia because it is the releasing of the need to hold on to our own individual – and systemic – needs for control because it emphasizes that my existence is predicated on yours, and vice versa. Archbishop Desmond Tutu called ubuntu the “essence of being human,” and he did so during the height of his struggle against apartheid, that South African system of segregation that was all about white people maintaining control. What is at the heart of ubuntu is exactly why Jesus emptied himself – and why Paul urges the big C Church to do the same – which is the truth that no person on this planet exists in isolation. We’re all in it together.

How many of you, when you think you’re losing control, or are otherwise generally afraid of what’s going on around you, retreat and isolate? How many of you feel like you have to go it alone, or that you have to do everything yourself, otherwise the entire world will fall apart? How many of you fight against the tides of change?

A while back Kristen and I were vacationing in the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the first time in a several years. I was excited to get in the water, but I failed to pay attention to the fact that it was late in the summer, the wind was picking up, and the tides were strong. I got caught, and the harder I fought the more tired I got. Plus, I was going nowhere. Kristen yelled from the shore for me to stop fighting – seriously?! – and let the waves carry me back ashore. Eventually I listened, but only when I let go and stopped fighting.

When our instincts cry for us to hold on or fight back, the still, small voice of Jesus calls us to kenosis and leads us to let go and surrender.  What’s more, by recognizing the ubuntu, our connectedness as community – be it a church, a town, a country, or the whole world - we are freed of the part of ourselves that needs power and control. Come what may, we can ride the waves of change because we remember we’re in these waters together.

Still, emptying ourselves doesn’t mean harming ourselves or neglecting our own needs and self-care. Quite the opposite! Paul says to be imitators of Christ, which, I believe, means realizing that we are part of something that is bigger than just ourselves, and that when any of us are in pain, the whole Body is in pain. Too often when we are caught in the cycles of shame that keep telling us we have to have it all together, we can’t see the beloved one in front of us acting as Jesus and trying to help. It’s only when we empty ourselves that we can see that beloved one – see our ubuntu – and accept that help, be healed, and go do likewise. Because we cannot give to others what we ourselves have not already received.

The religious authorities of Jesus’ time often get a bad rap because they were so afraid of change that they couldn’t see God right in front of them. But their blindness was a symptom of the corrupt collaboration system of domination between the  that was based on that very same fear of change and losing control. But what if we could let go of that fear for ourselves? What if we didn’t need to be in control?  (Because, spoiler alert, we’re not!) What if we could empty ourselves of that need and realized our own existence is dependent on one another? Perhaps then we will understand that God is the only one in control, and that, come what may, as my favorite saint put it, all manner of things shall be well