The Baptismal Life

“The Baptismal Life”, A Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday October 30, 2011 at NPEM, New York

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. (Matt. 23:1-3)

Jon Huntsman this week called his rival Mitt Romney “a perfectly lubricated weather vane” and rival Herman Cain “the flavor of the week.” As the Republican candidates for president continue to duke it out in their debates and in public attacks between debates the rest of us are treated to a never ending barrage of hyperbole, charicaturization by the candidates of each other, and reductionist exaggeration as they vie to make the other person appear ridiculous or evil or stupid or whatever else they are up to. And this behavior isn’t limited to the political arena. We all know the extent to which religious people, leaders and lay, love to lob verbal volleys at people on the other side of the theological or spiritual continuum. As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues its activities, religious groups on all sides of the theological spectrum have become involved with the protesters. Some religious conservatives have criticized the faith-based support of Occupy Wall Street calling it a “60’s style, leftist effort to redistribute wealth.” The Family Research Council urged its members to pray that God would prevent what it called “these radical organizers from stirring revolution.” It seems an inescapable fact of human nature and the functioning of human communities, that we are incapable of disagreeing with one another, particularly when the issues strike close to the heart, without devolving to invective, hyperbole and heated rhetoric.

Our reading from Matthew’s gospel this morning is an example of just this kind of rhetoric, as we hear Jesus railing against the Pharisees and scribes. This section of Matthew’s gospel has been problematic in the long history of Christian anti-Judaism as it has been used, incorrectly, to foster contempt for the Pharisees, who, over time, have come in the minds of most everyday Christians to be equated with people of the Jewish faith. In fact, when Matthew’s gospel was written, in the late first century, probably between 75-85 CE, after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, the early followers of Jesus, the Jewish Christians in Matthew’s church, were one of a number of sects of Judaism and all were desperately trying to salvage their religious tradition and find a way to move it forward in the wake of the destruction of the temple. The followers of Jesus were Jews and they were embroiled in intra-religious controversies with other sects or denominations of 1st century Judaism. The rhetoric and invective could get pretty heated, as religious disputes tend to do. We in the Anglican Communion know something about this as we have endured years of arguing and dispute over issues of human sexuality and not much of that argument has been particularly respectful or friendly.

What scholars understand about the Pharisees suggests that they were the first century Jewish version of most of us in this room. They were traditional, religious Jews, they were educated and comfortably employed members of their society. Not necessarily rich, but well off enough to have time for education and religious training. They were the ones who preserved what is known as the Oral Torah, a whole strand of Torah interpretation that had been handed down for centuries by oral transmission, while they were also skilled at interpretation of the written Torah. They were very much invested in preserving Judaism after the destruction of the temple and in finding ways to continue their religious tradition and its practices in a world that had changed radically. After the temple was destroyed, Judaism could have simply died out and vanished from the face of history. That it did not is testament to the faithfulness and perseverance of groups like the Pharisees. Like many of us modern, mainline Christians who are trying desperately to determine how to keep our religious traditions alive and relevant in a new age which has seen precipitous decline in church participation and attendance, the Pharisees wanted to make sure that their tradition continued into the future as a viable and authentic tradition.

Given that context what do we do with this gospel passage? Matthew’s Jesus is pretty emphatic in his criticism of those who say one thing and do another when it comes to religious practice and piety. There is no escaping the clear directive to “walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.” Indeed, as I read this scree against the Pharisees, it reminded me of much that I hear from people who have either fallen away from church or from those atheist/agnostic/”spiritual but not religious” young people who say that it is the hypocrisy of so many church goers that turns them off of institutionalized religion. So the strong message about being sincere and humble in one’s religious practice certainly survives the test of time. Religious play-acting was a source of contempt in the first century Jewish Christian world and continues to be a factor in turning people away from religion in our 21st century world. So as we strive to be faithful Christians in our contemporary context, we have to think hard about how we be disciples and apostles in a way that is genuine and authentic and spiritually grounded. And it is just as easy for us to fall into either an excess of piety, or, more likely, a detached and compartmentalized way of living our lives that puts our religious self out on Sunday morning and then a whole different self out in the world of Monday to Saturday.

In the diatribe against the Pharisees, Jesus accuses them of burdening people with way too much religious rules and regulations, so much so that the religion becomes an impediment to spiritual growth and sustenance. My guess is that in our modern Christian context, we do the opposite. We make it so easy to be a Christian, demanding so little of people in the hopes of enticing them to come to church or to stay once they’ve entered the threshold, that we give them spiritual pablum when they need solid food. And we’ve got good solid food to offer, food that sustains the human soul through all the joys and tribulations of the earthly journey.

Today we will baptize Anthony James M______ at St. Mark’s. At every baptism we all renew our own baptismal covenant. That baptismal covenant contains the richest spiritual solid food any of us ever needs. That covenant is how we promise to walk the walk with Jesus, not just talk the talk. And while most of us can say it almost by rote, we must guard against simply “going through the motions” when we do a baptism in church (or on the designated Sundays in the year when we all renew that covenant whether or not we have a baptism) If all of us lived into that baptismal covenant every day of our lives we would go a long way towards eliminating accusations of religious hypocrisy that are often justifiably hurled at us. The baptismal covenant is a blueprint for how we are to live our lives with God. We renounce evil and Satan, we turn to Jesus as Lord and Savior, we promise to repent and return to God when we fall short of the glory of God, we promise to work for justice and peace and to respect the dignity of every human being. The covenant calls us to participate in regular spiritual disciplines – being faithful in the Christian fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers – and it lays out our duties to the world we are called to serve.

Jesus tells the crowd and his disciples that they must be servants of one another and cultivate humility, something our contemporary world does not equip us well to do. The humble do not get ahead in our highly competitive society. In many respects, the baptismal covenant offers us a way out of the competitive, win/lose ethos of our society, and extends us an invitation to a life that is far more gracious, generous and healing than that of our secular society. Jesus calls us to a posture of humility and service, which is not servility and does not mean we become doormats for others to stomp on. The baptismal covenant says it well – “respect the dignity of every human being.” That simple line sums up much of what Jesus gets at in his “those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” We don’t have to agree with someone to respect their dignity. And we can dignify someone even as we engage in debate and discourse with them, the more so if we treat them with dignity. Jesus did it even in the midst of his tongue lashing in today’s reading, as he instructed the crowd and disciples to listen to the Pharisees and scribes because they sit on Moses seat and are wise.

We live in a complex and disturbing world and our religious tradition with its spiritual wisdom and practices offers us a way to navigate that world with serenity, generosity and peace. Our baptismal covenant is our spiritual “to do list” and not all of it is easy. Studying our scriptures and religious tradition so we can hear the living word of God in our contemporary day, living in community with others even when they drive us crazy, attend church on Sundays and holy days to participate in the sacred mystery of the Eucharist, engage in a regular discipline of prayer and self-examination, serve the poor and needy in our neighborhoods and the larger world, renounce the forces of evil that are always at work in our world and do it all with a profound respect for the dignity of every human being. Gandhi is famous for observing that Christianity is a great religion and would be more so if its followers actually followed the teachings of their Jesus. Like those Pharisees and scribes, all of us at some time or other somehow fail to walk the walk as we talk the talk, but we’ve always got our gracious God waiting for us to repent, that is to turn around and come back and try again. Today in many Protestant denominations our Christian brothers and sisters are honoring Reformation Sunday. So in the spirit of Reformation Sunday I will close with one of Martin Luther’s foundational instructions to all Christians as they struggle to live their faith with integrity. “Remember your baptism.” Amen.

Transitional Living

“Transitional Living”, A Sermon preached by the Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, October 23, 2011 at NPEM, New York

4The Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.” (Deuteronomy 34:4)

37He said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 22:27-29)

We live in a world that seems perpetually to be in the midst of cataclysmic transition. From natural disasters like the flooding that devastated parts of our own country earlier this summer, and hit Thailand this week, and earthquakes that shook parts of the eastern seaboard several weeks ago, and tornadoes that devastated southern towns in the early months of the summer and fires that raged in Texas, nature seems to be rearranging the natural landscape with alarming frequency. Then world politics continues its tumultuous trajectory as the Arab Spring gives way to the Occupy Wall Street movement, and as despotic leaders are toppled one by one in the wake of the grass roots movements towards democracy in various troubled places throughout the world. This past week saw the death of a particularly hated and despotic leader, as Moammar Gadhafi was finally gunned down by rebel forces in Libya, the result of which was much jubilation as yet another tyrannical leader met a violent end. I never rejoice in the death of a human being, even as I may breathe a sigh of relief when a cruel and despotic leader like Gadhafi finally falls from power. Gadhafi ruled for 40+ years in Libya and that country is now in the throes of the transition anxiety and chaos that often comes along when there is a change in power, particularly one as violent and contentious as this one was.

Today we read in our biblical text of the death of another Middle Eastern leader who’s tenure lasted 40 years, and what a different story it is. The reading from Deuteronomy chronicles the death of Moses, who is also eulogized as the greatest prophet Israel had ever seen. “1He was unequaled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, 12and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.” While the story of the death of Gadhafi is full of violence, bloodshed, retribution and revenge, the story of Moses’ death is poignant, dignified and ultimately peaceful, even though we learn that Moses was not permitted to enter the Promised Land with his flock.

How sad it seems that Moses, who worked so diligently and faithfully leading the Israelites across the Red Sea out of Egypt into freedom, who wandered with them for 40 years in the wilderness, who saw God face to face on Mt. Sinai and received the Ten Commandments, who argued and bartered and negotiated with God on behalf of his people, even when they were mumbling and murmuring and complaining against him, how sad that he never sees the Promised Land. He gets right to the brink and then dies. It doesn’t seem fair somehow, that after all that work and all that faithfulness in the midst of harsh conditions and complaining constituents, after years of eating manna and the occasional quail and having to contend with the capriciousness of his followers, Moses doesn’t get to reap the rewards of the wilderness wanderings.

Moses’ story is powerful because it resonates so fully with the realities of all of our earthly lives. The life each of us lives on this earth for however long it lasts, is a transitional moment in the long span of history. We are each called into being by our loving God and given our vocations and callings by God. We enter into covenant with God at baptism and then spend the rest of our days living into that covenant, being faithful even when we can’t seem to see the end results we thought were awaiting us for all our efforts. And like Moses, all that we do while we wander our earthly wilderness is preparation for a future that seems always just beyond our reach. We raise our children and grandchildren to carry on after we are gone, and we try to be good stewards of our resources so that they will be there for the benefit of those who will come after us. If we are being true to our call from God, we make decisions in our lifetime that will bear fruit not only for us but for those who will follow us. Jesus summarizes God’s commandments in the simple maxim – Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself. Loving neighbor as self assumes that we will act for the benefit of others, not for our own self interest and greed.

That many people in power in our culture, both in politics and in corporate life, here and abroad do not understand this biblical wisdom about the transitional nature of earthly life is obvious. The Occupy Wall Street movement has spread not only across our country but also overseas as people take to the streets to protest political and economic leadership that has preferenced the present day comforts of the elite and wealthy at the expense of the poor and the middle class. Thousands are protesting as our modern day expectations of life in the Promised Land are dashed by corporate greed, government bailouts, political posturing and stalemates, and an ever widening gap between the wealthy and everyone else. Our biblical texts are unequivocally clear that God expects us to live in such a way as to protect the common good, to create a world in which all are fed, all are safe, and where the resources which God has made available to all of God’s children are distributed fairly among all of God’s children. Loving neighbor means caring about the welfare of the neighbor, whether that neighbor looks like you or not. In our modern day, the whole world in all its diversity are our neighbors and we are called to the kind of faithfulness and integrity that Moses exhibited as he endured years of hardship and challenge in the wilderness.

Moses and Jesus model for us how we are to live in this world and serve it in God’s name. Both of them understood what it is to live in a world that is perpetually in transition. Everything is always changing, nothing ever stays the same and the spiritual life is about finding God in the midst of all the uncertainties and upheavals of earthly life. Moses received the covenant on Mt. Sinai and Jesus continued that covenant in his life and ministry and in the sacred mystery he established in his name on the night before he died. God demanded of Moses and of Jesus and his followers that we live our lives in this world, this transitional, always changing world, on the basis of the commandments to love – love God and love neighbor. And loving neighbor carries with it some pretty concrete expectations about respecting human dignity, feeding the poor, housing the homeless and being a voice for the voiceless.

Yes, it seems unfair that Moses worked so hard and so faithfully and yet was never permitted to enter the Promised Land. Perhaps that is because for Moses the wilderness was his Promised Land. Certainly the biblical story indicates that when Joshua and the Israelites entered Canaan life was far from rosy there. War, violence, conflict and more struggles followed them into that Promised Land a place which turned out to be just as transitional as the wilderness had been. Moses served God and the Israelites faithfully and enjoyed the privilege of his intimate relationship with God during his entire ministry with them. God rewarded him with a vision of what the future might look like, but he was not destined to be part of that future vision. His role was to shepherd the Israelites during that wilderness time, which had its own set of challenges and its own peculiar rewards.

We have a lot in common with Moses. Everything we do in the course of our lives as faithful Christians, we do in the midst of difficult, challenging and sometimes overwhelming present realities often unable to see how what we are doing will work out in the end. Whether our challenges come in the form of raising children, or coping with physical illness or disability in ourselves or our loved ones, or working in our towns, villages, cities and neighborhoods to try to address pressing issues like hunger or homelessness or lack of medical care, or violence, or addiction, or any of the many social problems that beset our society, we may often feel as though we are making little difference. We may get frustrated when we don’t seem to arrive at some hoped for destination as quickly as we’d like to. Most of life is actually an exercise in transitional living, as we juggle present realities in the hopes of a better future. It’s important to have a vision of that hoped for future, but equally important to cultivate Moses’ ability to live in the present moment, doing what is right and good for that moment. Loving God and loving neighbor is how we stay centered and grounded in the midst of the perpetual transitions and changes of earthly life. No matter what else changes in life, and virtually everything does, what does not change, ever, is the love of God for us and our obligation to live into that love in concrete ways by pouring that love back out into our world. As the psalmist prayed to God, so we pray – “Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations….Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands – O prosper the work of our hands.” (Psalm 90)

Going with the Holy Presence

“Going with the Holy Presence”, A Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, October 16, 2011 at NPEM, New York

“God said, ‘My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.’ And Moses said to God, ‘If your presence will not go, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.’” (Exodus 33:15-16)

Give therefore to the emporer the things that are the emporer’s and to God the things that are God’s. (Matt. 22:21)

As part of my work as interreligious officer for the diocese of Rochester, I am engaged in ongoing dialogue with the Hindu community. We meet once a month at the Hindu temple for dialogue and it always proves to be a rich and spiritually stretching experience. As we have deepened our connections with one another, we frequently continue our dialogue throughout the month through e-mail correspondence. Early this week, one of my Hindu colleagues sent around an article from the Huffington Post religion blog, which reported on a recent study of young people and their reasons for giving up on church. The article reported the results of a study done by the Barna research group, which found that young people view churches as “judgmental, overprotective, exclusive and unfriendly towards doubters.” They also were disillusioned with the ongoing battles between some churches and the discoveries of science.

In my response to my Hindu friend, who basically wondered why Christian youth are falling away at such a rate, I pointed out that the type of Christianity that the young people in that study were reacting against is the more fundamentalist variety and that those of us on the dialogue group represent a more liberal and progressive type of Christianity that might not be guilty of quite the degree of judgmentalism, overprotectiveness and the like as our fundamentalist brethren. I opined that the real problem for us mainline Christians, who also find our ranks devoid of young people and young adults, is the intense secularization of our contemporary culture.

The sad truth is that for many of the “20/30 somethings” of today, religion is simply irrelevant. Our culture, while in many ways one that pays lip service to religion and religious belief, is really radically secular and the younger generation has grown up with little or no understanding of the need to nurture and nourish their souls. In our world of highly sophisticated technology and the global interconnectedness that the technology allows, we have lost our reverence for the human soul and our ability as a culture to admit of the presence of something outside ourselves, something sacred and divine at work in the world. What I have come to understand in my work of interreligious dialogue is that we Christians who take our faith seriously, who believe in God and in the spiritual life and the presence of the holy as part of the created order, have more in common with our interreligious neighbors – with religious Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists – than we do with those who profess no religious faith or are only nominally Christian.

In the context of these ongoing dialogues with my interreligious colleagues I found that today’s lectionary provided interesting material for reflection on this conundrum we religious folk face as we live our lives of faith in a deeply secular culture. In the reading from Exodus, Moses is engaged in quite an argument with God, following the incident where the Israelites built and worshipped a Golden Calf, which enraged God no end, and Moses is trying to talk God down, and plead for God to be present with him, Moses, as he continues his job of leading the Israelites through the wilderness. He also boldly asks God to be visibly present to the Israelites as well, so that they will not lose heart or faith, recognizing that in the midst of their struggles in the wilderness they really need to have some visible reminder that God is truly present with them as they proceed towards the Promised Land. Life in the wilderness is tough and the Israelites easily lose patience. You may remember that in the stories of the wilderness wanderings, God is present with the Israelites in the form of a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. Human beings have always needed something they could grab on to to reassure them of the presence of God in their midst, to somehow mark them as belonging to God.

Then in the gospel story, Jesus has his famous encounter with Pharisees and Herodians who want to entrap him into saying something that will get him in trouble with the authorities. The question they ask about paying taxes and his response about giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s has often been interpreted in terms of how Christians should conduct their financial lives. Yes, we should pay our taxes, but we must also pay our tithe and be faithful stewards of our resources. But Jesus points to something more than money and how we use it. In his statement about giving to the emperor what is the emperor’s and to God what is God’s, he touches on the very issue that infuses the struggles we people of faith have as we live in a solidly secular culture. All of us struggle to conduct our lives according to the expectations of our surrounding culture – our nation, city, neighborhood, our civic duties, our family responsibilities, our job demands. But we also have religious duties and expectations – we entered into a covenant at baptism and the responsibilities of that covenant lay claim to our lives as well. And as both the Exodus text and the gospel remind us, our religious life is not simply about following a set of rules to stay on the good side of a divine judge. It is, at its core, about relationship between the human being and the divine presence we call God.

Relationships call for more than merely going through the motions. A deep relationship requires vulnerability and trust and a willingness to make oneself open to the other in a genuine and authentic way. Moses argues with God because he and God are in a loving and respectful relationship. Moses calls God up short to be the best God can be, as he talks God down from his anger at the Israelites, but he also demands of God that God be present, be really there for him and his people as they struggle in the wilderness. Moses is privileged to see God face to face when he goes up to Mt. Sinai and receives the revelation of the Ten Commandments, and he returns from that encounter with his face shining from the glory of God. But God also protects him as he passes him by in this particular encounter because no human being can grasp the whole of God and live as a human being, and so God protects Moses in the cleft of the rock, by putting his hand out to shield Moses and allowing him to see only the back of the divine presence, which is enough divinity for Moses.

Both Moses and Jesus know God intimately. And the Ancient Israelites who followed Moses, and the disciples who followed Jesus saw in each of them and through each of them the light of the Holy One. Jesus was not referring only to how we use our money in this famous line about giving to the emperor what is the emperor’s. Our love, our passion, our creativity, our generativity, all that makes us human belongs to God. To give to God what is God’s is to give ourselves up to that sacred presence, to acknowledge the holy in the midst of the profane world in which we live, and to allow the reality of that sacred presence to guide how we live in this world. It’s not just about where we go when we die, its much more about how we live while we’re here. And its not just about private, personal matters, but also about how we give to the emperor what is the emperor’s, i.e. how do we honor the secular world of which we are a part and contribute our financial and human resources to it while also living as citizens of the kingdom of God? How do we vote in an election year? What causes do we support with our lips and lives and money? Where do we experience God in the midst of all that we do in our daily lives?

The divine presence is always with us, but like Moses and the Israelites, we sometimes despair of feeling that presence. And like the Pharisees, we can get too caught up in the rules and regulations of both the secular world and the institutional church and lose sight of the divine presence we are meant to be serving and then its no wonder our young people decide that the institutional church has nothing of value to offer them. If they felt the divine presence when they entered our churches, we wouldn’t have to come up with strategies to lure them in and we wouldn’t have to engage in elaborate feats of entertainment and gimmicks to keep them here. We celebrate a sacred mystery every week at the altar, a ritual that brings the divine presence right into our midst on any given Sunday.

Our world is infused with the presence of the Holy One. Depth psychologist Carl Jung had a sign over his door that read, “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” God is present in the beauty of our natural world, on deathbeds and sickbeds in hospitals and nursing homes, in preschool classrooms and university lecture halls, in the faces of our loved ones and the faces of people who drive us crazy, in the laughter of children and the wise counsel of the elderly. As people who wander the wilderness of earthly life in covenant with the God of Moses and Jesus, may we live in such a way that all who observe our way of being in the world know that we live always in the presence of the holy. May we witness to that sacred dimension in everything we do. When we truly “render to God what is God’s” we will “be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth.” And we just might reconnect our younger generation with the wisdom of the ages while we’re at it. Amen.