Comfort in Exile

“Comfort in Exile,” a Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, December 4, 2011 at St. John’s Church, Sodus, New York

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, her penalty is paid…(Isaiah 40:1-2)

4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.(Mark 1:4)

Finley Peter Dunne, American journalist and author of the early 20th century is credited with coining the phrase about journalism that it entails “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” Between the words of the Prophet Isaiah and the words of John the Baptist, our lectionary texts this week do a very good job of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Thanks to Handel’s Messiah, many Christians are familiar with the section of Isaiah’s text that we heard today. And every year on this Second Sunday of Advent we encounter wild and wooly John the Baptist, appearing in the wilderness offering his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, clothed in camel’s hair and munching on his locusts and wild honey. During this Advent season of waiting and expectation, of longing for the coming of God’s reign in our world, we are offered the tender words of the prophet as a soothing reminder to God’s people that despite all the vagaries and travails of human life, “the word of our God stands forever.” They are words of hope and comfort to a world aching for the inbreaking of God. And we are exhorted by John the Baptist to re-order our life priorities in order to “prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

It is a well known fact that many people find this holiday season emotionally and psychologically difficult. People who are living with serious illness, those who have lost loved ones in the past year or who continue to grieve a significant loss, those who are experiencing crises in their intimate relationships, those who suffer from addiction all find this season of forced merriment and celebration hard to take. In the tough economic times in which we live, those families enduring prolonged periods of unemployment face a season of overspending and consumerism that only serves to intensify their economic distress as they struggle to put food on the table and pay the rent while everyone and everything around them screams “spend, spend, spend!” CNN reported a poll this week which indicated that 35% of Americans dread the holiday season because they dislike the social imperative to have to be nice and cheerful for the entire month even when they don’t feel like it and most especially those for whom life is very difficult, sad or stressful.

In Advent, the prophet Isaiah sends us words of comfort and promise, words of hope. G.K. Chesterton once observed that words of hope mean little to those who have never known hopelessness and I imagine that is true. I wonder, however, if there is anyone alive who has not known hopelessness at some point in their life’s journey. We all have emotional aches, places of emptiness and loneliness, places of despair and desolation. Those places of emptiness and desolation become more pronounced in this season of short days and long nights, especially when they contrast so poignantly with the required merriment of the season. Isaiah’s words of hope and comfort, coupled with John the Baptist’s call to reorientation of our life priorities provide a welcome antidote to the false joy of our secular season.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in a place in your life where experiences of despair and emptiness are not paramount, just look at the daily news and you’ll get more than enough to send you there. Sex scandals breaking out at university sports departments and the Republican candidate races, the debt crisis fueling fears among investors and eroding trust in banks, violence erupting in Egypt as elections continue in that country that so recently saw a peaceful revolution, American Airlines goes into bankruptcy, British public workers stage a nation wide strike protesting cuts in pension benefits, the Occupy Wall Street movement continues in the wake of violent clashes with police in various cities, most significantly this week in Los Angeles. Unrest, un-ease, financial worries, polarized politics, violence and war, not to mention the aftermath all over the world from months of natural disasters –earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires that have devastated communities in our country and around the world in this calendar year. We go into this holiday season with more than enough trials and tribulations of human life to keep us grounded in clouds of worry and fear. And into the midst of this world, come the words of Isaiah and John the Baptist.

The prophet known as Second Isaiah was speaking to the ancient Israelites during the time of their exile in Babylon. They had been sent away to Babylon when the first temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and they spent forty years in exile, away from their homeland. Oddly enough, over the decades of exile, many of the exiled Israelites adapted to life in Babylon and were not eager to go back to Jerusalem when the opportunity arose, where they would have to rebuild their temple and their pre-exilic way of life. Some of them had grown comfortable in exile and the rigors of the journey home did not much appeal.

Being comfortable in exile. An interesting paradox. On the one hand the prophet utters words of soothing comfort, and yet at the same time calls the people out of the comfort of their exile into the challenges of going home to Jerusalem, the holy city where they had known God. Jerusalem is a metaphor for that holy place where the reign of God is realized. In Advent we await the coming of God into our world. In a sense we too are called on a journey home, home to the heart of God. Journeying home to the heart of God may or may not be a comfortable trip. At least comfort in the sense of familiarity and ease and predictability. Just look at the imagery Isaiah uses. Valleys being lifted up and mountains brought down does not suggest that the journey will be a stroll. The breath of God withering the grass is also not particularly calming imagery. And yet, the prophet promises that God will “gather the lambs in his arms and carry them at his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”

Advent is a season for we who have become too comfortable in exile to reconsider the promises of our God and muster up the hope required to live as if those promises will be fulfilled. The secular culture in which we live is a place of exile for many of us. As we live through this month of conspicuous consumerism, we know that something is awry. Despite the slick ads on television and the internet, new gadgets and do-dads will not bring the joy and happiness that the gospel of consumerism promises. Yet it is easy to fall prey to the frenzy of the season, to get sucked into the mass marketing blitz and lose touch with promise and hope of Advent.

The prophets Isaiah and John the Baptist call out in the wilderness of our modern lives, reminding us that so long as we remain captive to the values of materialism, success and greed we are in exile. The comforts we take for granted are false comforts, as fleeting as that grass that withers, something many of our brothers and sisters in Joplin, Mississippi, and Turkey, Texas and Japan learned the hard way this year. Going home to God, to the holy city Jerusalem takes us from exile into the promised land. As John the Baptist reminds us, we cannot do that without turning around, turning away from the temptations of our secular culture and back to the covenant with God. Those early Judeans went out to John the Baptist in the wilderness and got immersed in the waters of the Jordan as the first step back to a life lived with and for God.

It’s no wonder that so many people feel depressed during this season. In many ways that is a healthy reaction to the denial that our secular culture shoves down our throats every December. Advent makes much more emotional sense and is more true to human experience. We long for deliverance from war and violence, from poverty and social injustice, from addictions, debt, illness and loneliness. We long for God to come into our world and the only way to help that happen is for us to leave the comfort of our exile and be the hands of God in this world. Our God is a God of comfort. God comforts us in the dark nights of our prayer and in the ear of a friend over coffee. God comforts us in the hand held at the deathbed and the chicken soup delivered when the flu hits. God comforts the victims of disasters in the money sent for relief, the relief workers who rush to bring immediate help and the people dedicated to long term rebuilding.

This Advent, there are many exiles in the world in need of comfort. Relief agencies and charities of all kinds cry out for donations and contributions as the calendar year comes to a close. “Alternative gift catalogues” are widely available, offering us the opportunity to spend our holiday money giving food, animals, microloans, medical and educational tools to people all over the world who live in poverty. I visited Thailand, Laos and Cambodia this past summer and saw firsthand how far the American dollar can go in these developing countries where the things we take for granted here – running water, electricity, public education, quality medical and dental care – are beyond the reach of thousands of people in remote villages mired in poverty. In the midst of the holiday spending orgy, those of us who honor Advent can make a point of making additional donations to organizations that bring comfort to those in need.

Comfort, comfort ye my people says your God. In this season of preparation and waiting, expectation and hope let us live Advent in all its haunting beauty. Let us bring comfort to those we live and work with as we seek comfort in the arms of our loving God. Advent is about hope in the face of despair, light breaking into winter darkness, joy returning to lives marked by sorrow and grief. It is about leaving even the comfort of exile to make our way to God’s promised land. It is about the journey from exile across the desert on a highway paved by God. Advent is one of the most precious gifts we have in this season of gift giving. Let us live into it with gratitude.

Amen.

Waiting for God

“Waiting for God”, A Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, November 27, 2011 at NPEM, New York

35Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, 36or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. 37And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”(Mark 13:35-37)


Today begins the liturgical season of Advent, probably my very favorite season of the liturgical year. Advent, these four weeks leading up to the celebration of Christmas is probably one of the times I most feel the disconnect between our modern culture and my Christian faith. As the secular world begins to celebrate Christmas, with decorations and lights, Christmas trees, wreaths and Christmas muzac filling the air, we change the altar colors to blue and sing songs of longing and waiting and expectation, songs that speak of the end of the world and of the coming of God into the world at the end of time. It is the beginning of a new year in the Church and we speak of the end of time. Beginnings and endings are all of a piece in Advent. In these weeks before we celebrate the nativity of Jesus of Nazareth we look forward to the end of the world as we know it, with a mixture of hope and dread.

The passage from Mark’s gospel this morning is known as the “little Apocalypse” with its ominous portents of the end of life as we know it, the sun darkened, the moon failing to give light, stars falling from heaven. In the portion of the gospel that immediately precedes what we heard this morning, Jesus warns his followers of the signs that the end-times are coming. False prophets and false messiahs will arise, wars and rumors of wars will abound, his followers will be handed over to authorities to be persecuted and flogged, parents and children will be set against one another – all manner of bad things will be happening, and those will all be signs of the end-times approaching. But then, he says, after giving us all these signposts to watch for, only God knows when the end will come so all we can do is watch and wait. The tension that the early church was beginning to feel between its belief in an imminent return of Christ and the reality that the time wasn’t arriving as soon as they expected it to is reflected in this gospel text. This gospel writer was already starting to do what later Christian writers and theologians would have to do, which is to accept that God is in control of history and that perhaps, God works in ways that humans cannot predict or fathom. Only God knows how the world will end so we need to quit trying to predict the unpredictable and adopt an attitude of expectant watchfulness.

Advent, contrary to popular belief, is not simply about getting ready for Christmas by shopping, baking, entertaining and indulging in an orgy of consumerism and bacchanalian partying. It is about quiet, watchful waiting. Waiting for God to be born in our hearts, waiting for God’s kingdom to break into our world, waiting for the fulfillment of our highest dreams and aspirations as individuals and communities, dreams of a world marked by peace and justice, a world in which hunger and homelessness and disease do not claim so many human lives.

Waiting is something that we 21st century folk have become unaccustomed to doing. We are increasingly impatient and desirous of instant and immediate gratification. With cellphones and computers, high speed internet access, digital photography, microwaveable dinners and other technological wonders, we no longer have to wait for anything. Waiting is its own form of spiritual discipline and one that has almost been lost in modern life. On the few occasions in life where it is still unavoidable, many of us find it excruciating. Whether it is waiting for a child to be born, or waiting for the results of important medical tests, or waiting at the bedside of a dying loved one, or waiting to hear about an important job offer or professional appointment, we tend to find waiting to be a painful and agonizing process. Yet our forebears in the faith knew well what we have almost forgotten. Waiting is an important and crucial spiritual discipline. Advent invites us to rediscover it.

Holly Whitcomb, author of a book about the spiritual gift of waiting puts it this way:

Waiting presents an enormous challenge. We are impatient, I-can-fix-it kind of people… but not all situations can be fixed. We assume that everything in life can be made better by taking action, but sometimes it just isn’t so. … Yet waiting is an enormous opportunity if we regard it as a wise teacher. Waiting offers us a great deal when we choose to learn.
Waiting is an important guest to honor in the guest house of our humanity. If we consciously allow waiting to be our teacher, we can accommodate waiting more peacefully. If we welcome waiting as a spiritual discipline, waiting will present its spiritual gifts and some of our richest spiritual opportunities if we are conscious enough and courageous enough to name them and live into them.
Bingo halls and casinos often post the sign, ‘You must be present to win.’ In order to convert the inescapable lessons of waiting into deliberate spiritual gifts, we too, have to be present; we need to pay attention. (Seven Gifts of Waiting)

A famous preacher once noted, “Advent begins in the dark.” Advent is all about waiting in the dark, and that is something we humans find very hard to do, despite the fact that it happens a lot in the course of a human life. The author of Mark’s gospel exhorts us to keep awake, to be constantly on edge, to be ready for whatever God may do, but it’s hard to do that when the waiting seems endless. Sometimes waiting can be exciting, like waiting for the birth of a child. You may know the general time period that the birth will happen but you never know exactly when, and those last few weeks and days can seem endless as with every twinge you wonder, “Is this it?” Waiting for death is a remarkably similar process. Often doctors and nurses can tell a family that a patient is actively dying, but never can anyone predict exactly when the moment will come. The vigil at a bedside is full of the kind of agonized expectancy that our Advent texts speak of and it is excruciatingly difficult for we humans to let go and let God control the process, even though that is what we say we want to have happen.

Waiting is tough. Active, expectant watchful waiting is even tougher. Its too easy for us to lose heart when the waiting seems endless, to give up and go to sleep or to become not fully present by filling our lives with activity and busyness, noise and distraction so that we don’t have to contemplate the very thing for which we are waiting. Our Buddhist brothers and sisters understand well what Jesus is saying in today’s gospel text, as their spiritual practice is fully focused on becoming “awakened ones” which is what the term “Buddha” means.

Advent is the liturgical way our church reminds us to live our lives in an attitude of expectant, alert watchfulness. The kind of waiting that we are called to in Advent requires us to pay attention to our world, to keep an eye out for God, by paying attention to the signs and wonders around us that hint at God’s presence in our world and God’s inbreaking into our existence. Jesus reminds us to look at the world around us for signs of God’s work in that world, to be alert to discern the hand of God working through the chaos of human existence. It’s tempting to dull our senses with busyness or apathy, but in Advent we are called to live life on the edge, to be poised to move with God, to respond when God breaks into our world in whatever way God does in this time and place.

Advent is all about expectant, watchful, hopeful waiting. This kind of waiting is actually the hallmark of the spiritual life. It requires discipline and trust in God in the face of struggles and agonies that may seem unendurable. Advent is our liturgical reminder that much of our life of faith is comprised of waiting. While we wait we remain alert, awake and hopeful. We don’t tune out or give up. Our Advent observance reminds us that we must remain active and involved and committed to the furtherance of the reign of God. We are called to be part of the process of bringing God’s kingdom into our world.

During Advent we are reminded to live our lives like people on the verge of some exciting discovery, like an expectant mother in that excruciating 9th month. When there is nothing to do but wait we are forced to center ourselves, to be present in the moment and to give up our need to control the events and processes of our lives. When we are waiting for something to happen, we have no choice but to surrender to God, to let go and empty ourselves and allow things to unfold in their own mysterious way. “O Come O Come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, who waits in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.” Waiting can feel like a lonely exile until we remember the promise of God with us. Advent invites us to focus on the new beginning embedded in every ending, the ending inherent in every new beginning and to relish the waiting that is an integral part of the birthing of God’s kingdom in our lives and our world. In those lonely waiting times let us pray the Advent hymn, “Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel.”

Amen.

Obedience to Love

“Obedience to Love”, A Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, November 20, 2011 at Grace Church, Lyons, NY

Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”(Matt. 25:34-36)


Some statistics for our consideration: Hunger in the US – in 2010 14.5 percent, or 17.2 million households in the United States were “food insecure” meaning that they experience hunger and inadequate food supply at some point in every month. Of those households with children in the home, 9.8% were “food insecure.” With more than 2.3 million people behind bars, the United States leads the world in both the number and percentage of residents it incarcerates, leaving far-more-populous China a distant second, according to a study by the nonpartisan Pew Center on the States. In 2007, nearly 50 million Americans did not have health insurance, while another 25 million were underinsured. (Source: Commonwealth Fund Biennial Health Insurance Survey 2007) The total annual premium for a typical family health insurance plan offered by employers was $12,680 in 2008. (Source: Kaiser/HRET Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits, 2008) Even after health care reform, millions of Americans are un-or-underinsured, meaning that the high quality medical care otherwise available in our country is beyond the reach of the poor and most vulnerable. On November 8, Russell Pearce, Arizona Senator who was responsible for a draconian immigration law in Arizona lost his seat in a recall election which was motivated in no small measure by reaction against his inhospitable stance with respect to immigrants in Arizona.
In the midst of these statistics, the Gospel comes to us this morning as a living Word of God with something pretty clear to say about the world in which we live out our faith today. As we end our liturgical year with another of Matthew’s parables of judgment, Jesus describes God’s judgment upon humankind using the famous parable of the separation of the sheep and the goats. This is a parable that has troubled many thinking Christians over the centuries for a variety of reasons. Theologically, it seems to suggest that “salvation” is something that we can earn, a concept that is anathema to Protestant theologians in particular. The mantra among such theologians is we are saved by grace alone through faith alone. It is not anything that we do that brings our salvation, it is entirely up to God. This parable of the sheep and goats seems to contradict that theological position. It seems to suggest that if we do the acts of mercy that Jesus names in the parable, we’ll be judged among the righteous. What ever happened to salvation by grace?
This is one of those theological mind games that demonstrates the extent to which theological positions need to be based on more than one isolated quotation from scripture. It is in considering the scriptural texts as a whole that we evaluate any given portion and from that full consideration develop our theology. And if there is one issue on which both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Testament are clear, it is that our duty as children of God is to care for those that Jesus calls the “least of these” in today’s parable. The poor, the homeless, the outcast, the prisoner, all of those on the margins of society are to be the focus of our loving attention. That we serve Christ when we serve those he calls “the least of these” suggests that we cannot truly claim to believe in him nor to be disciples of his if we do not act on those claims in a real way. And today’s parable also suggests that we must care for those “least” amongst us because it is the right thing to do, not because we want to earn our own salvation. Those who were judged righteous in the parable were not even aware that they were serving Christ when they did what they believed to be right. Their hearts had been so transformed in the love of God, that they automatically did what God expects, because God who is love truly lived within them.
The duty to serve the poor, the outcast, the homeless and oppressed is universally required of people of faith in all of the world’s religions. In every major tradition, parables and sayings like the parable of the sheep and the goats abound. In the Hadith of Islam, interpretations of Qu’ranic verses, it is written, “On the day of judgment God Most High will say, "Son of Adam, I was sick and you did not visit Me." He will reply, "My Lord, how could I visit Thee when Thou art the Lord of the Universe!" He will say, "Did you not know that My servant so-and-so was ill and yet you did not visit him? Did you not know that if you had visited him you soon would have found Me with him?"” In the writings of the Tao, is the following:
Relieve people in distress as speedily as you must release a fish from a dry rill [lest he die]. Deliver people from danger as quickly as you must free a sparrow from a tight noose. Be compassionate to orphans and relieve widows. Respect the old and help the poor. Taoism. Tract of the Quiet Way
In the Buddhist tradition is a story about a man who gave water to a wandering pilgrim who showed up at his door, even though it meant that he and his family would go thirsty. The sacred writings of Hinduism also have many stories extolling acts of charity and kindness to the poor and downtrodden.
Given the overwhelming weight of the wisdom of sages from every religious tradition, it is abundantly clear that God Most High expects that we will care for those who are less fortunate than we are because it is simply the right thing to do. If we claim with our lips to love God, then we have no choice but to behave in charitable and loving ways to our fellow human beings. “Salvation” is something more than getting to heaven when we die. It is very much about what kind of a world we create while we live. God saves freely and through God’s abundant grace, but God judges us based upon our real world actions during our lifetimes.
This parable of judgment in Christian terms offers images of separation from God for those who did not render loving service to “the least of these.” Whether or not you believe in heaven and hell in the medieval, Dante’s Inferno kind of imagery, the notion that one can choose to put oneself outside of the embrace of our all loving God is also a universal religious belief. While not all religions speak of salvation in the way Christians do, and indeed, other world religions do not focus on the concept of “being saved” in the way some Christians do, all world religions share the fundamental concept that people’s actions in this life affect what happens to them in the next. In East Asian religions – Hinduism and Buddhism – the concept of karma suggests that what you do in this life has consequences that extend beyond this life. If you are a good and loving and generous and charitable person, you build up good karma, and go to a better place in the next life, whereas if you do bad things to other people bad consequences will follow you into the next life.
Our Abrahamic religious cousins, Muslims and Jews, also share the fundamental belief that one must care for those who are called the “least of these” by Jesus. Muslims believe that upon death the soul appears before God for judgment and that all the deeds one has done in one’s life will be weighed in balance and God, who is merciful, will judge accordingly. Since Muslims do not share our concept of salvation by faith through grace, they die with somewhat less assurance of the good outcome, but I have heard many of my Muslim friends declare with faith and trust that they know God to be merciful and compassionate and they rest their faith in that. And one of the five pillars of Islam is zakat, charitable giving, the requirement to give 2.5% of one’s savings to charity every year.
The universality of this command to care for those Jesus calls the “least of these” is underscored in the gospel text itself – “all the nations will be gathered” is a very universal image and one that suggests that ultimately God is far more concerned with how we do love in this world than with what we profess to believe about God. As our nation enters a national election year very soon, we people of faith do well to keep in mind this measuring rod of God’s judgment in light of the statistics about hunger, health care deprivation, imprisonment, immigration struggles and other issue of human rights and social justice that are part of our modern life. God doesn’t care what people say they believe or how they worship God or even if they worship God. God commands that we serve the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the hungry, the outcast. God cares for the 99% that the Occupy Wall St. folks are purporting to represent.
God cares about how the needs of those least of these are met by our society. And God will judge those who have the power in society to address the needs of those people, based upon whether or not they do feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned, heal the sick, house the homeless. It does matter to God what we do in this world especially with and for those on the bottom rung of our society. A Nicaraguan peasant Christian engaged in a gospel dialogue astutely summarizes what the gospel demands of us and it is not easy because it does require that we confront the systems in our culture that produce the statistics we recited earlier: “Obedience to love. Obedience to love is very revolutionary, because it commands us to disobey everything else.” (The Gospal in Solentiname, Ernesto Cardinal, 1978, p. 18)

Amen.

Risky Business

“Risky Business”, A Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, November 13, 2011 at Grace Church, Lyons New York


For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. (Matt. 25:29)

If ever there was a biblical saying that could appear to justify giving tax breaks to the rich and taking welfare benefits from the poor, those closing lines of today’s gospel parable of the talents seems tailor made for the occasion! One might argue that when the Wall Street bankers who brought down the economy got their year end, seven figure bonuses even in the years when the government was bailing out their institutions, that this parable was coming to life in the 21st century! Given Jesus’ frequent teachings and preachings on the potential dangers of money, particularly its ability to corrupt the soul, it seems absurd that he would tell a parable in which he appears to conclude that those who are wealthy deserve to get more wealth while those who are poor somehow deserve to lose yet more. What on earth are we to make of this parable?

The parable of the talents is a tough one to swallow and it takes a fair amount of thinking to make any sense of it at all. This parable comes late in Matthew’s gospel and is part of a series of parables that Jesus tells about God’s judgment on humankind. Using a story about the various ways a group of slaves invested money entrusted to them by their master, this parable invites us to think not only about how we handle money and material resources given to us by God, but also how we use all the gifts God has given us for the furtherance of God’s mission. This parable is about judgment and accountability and calls us to be conscious of how we live out our faith in the mundane aspects of our daily lives. On one level the parable forces us to face the reality that we are accountable to God for how we live our life, for what we do in this life with all that we have been given. On another level the parable calls us to be mindful of the nature of our relationship with God and to reflect upon just how much we truly trust God to provide what we need in this life.

This is a stewardship parable and not just in its teaching about money. It calls us to think about how we manage the abundant resources that God has given us. Jesus reminds us that we all have a responsibility to make the most of what we have. In the story, one slave got five talents, another got two and another got one, each “according to his ability.” God gives gifts differently to different people, but all receive some gifts and all are called to make the most of that which has been given. While the vehicle for the story is money, the parable really invites us to think not only about our financial resources but about all the gifts we have received from God, tangible and intangible. One message of the story is pretty clear: take what God has given you and make more of it. Be responsible with the gifts you’ve been given so that you can offer back to the donor (i.e. GOD) more than was originally given you. Remember that what you have that you are investing is not really yours, but remains, in fact, the possession of the master who will expect a good return when the time for accounting comes.

On a deeper level, this parable talks about stewardship, not just of money, but of our entire lives. This parable suggests that God has given to each of us gifts, abilities, and talents that are unique to us. God expects, indeed, demands, that we make the most of those gifts, talents and abilities for the furtherance of God’s kingdom. When the master in the parable excoriates the slave who hid his one talent, he is very harsh – “you wicked and lazy slave” he cries out. Given that the guy didn’t lose the money, he did after all, safeguard it so it would not be lost or stolen, that seems a harsh and severe judgment, don’t you think? Is the guy wicked because he wouldn’t go out and take a risk and try to grow the money? Wasn’t he just a prudent and risk-averse investor, someone who preferred safety to risk, who just wanted to hedge his bets? This guy only had one talent – what if he had risked it and lost it? What was the sin here that brought about such a strong reaction from the master?

The so called “wicked” slave seems to have made two fundamental mistakes in dealing with the talent he was given. First, he insulted the master when questioned about his failure to invest the money and make it grow. He flat out told the guy that he didn’t trust him, that he considered him “a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter seed.” Now it is no surprise that the master didn’t take kindly to that kind of insolence. If the master in the story is God, then what we have here is a person telling God, “I don’t trust you to deal fairly with me or to manage the resources of the world fairly, so I decided to play it safe and give you back what is yours.” This is not a recipe for an intimate and trusting relationship! Lack of trust is a big issue in any relationship, as much in the relationship we each have with God as in any human relationship that we pursue. Stewardship, it turns out, has a lot to do with trust. Trust that God will provide for our needs, trust that we can take risks with the gifts we have been given and God will be there when we do so.

The second mistake the “wicked” slave made was being afraid to take a risk. He was so afraid of losing the one talent he had that he merely hid it rather than working with it to make more of it. His risk averse strategy preserved the “talent” but didn’t multiply it or spread it around so that there would be more of it. Indeed, in order to keep it safe he had to hide it. How often do we hide the talents we have been given so as not to have to do the work that using them entails? And how likely is it that our talents will grow and increase if we hide them away from sight? Jesus seems pretty clear as he tells this story that risk taking is an important part of our relationship with God and is crucial to being able to make the most of the gifts God has given us.

Jesus calls us all to be risk takers, to live out our lives of faith in daring and shrewd and active ways. A life of faith is a life dedicated to moving out in the world, taking the resources God has given us and multiplying them for the good of all God’s people. The commandments to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves suggest that our duty as people of God has something to do with using our “talents” to do love in the world. Doing love always involves significant risk and abundant trust, as anyone who has ever loved another person can attest. Nothing that is worth doing is risk free – any successful entrepreneur will tell you that. Jesus doesn’t expect us all to be able to do the same kinds of things – we each get different gifts and therefore different results are expected, but results are expected from all. Our fear of taking risks is directly proportional to our trust in God. If we really trust God, we are more able to take the risks that will grow our talents for the good of everyone.

All of us have taken a risk this morning. We have come to the feast of Life itself. We have put ourselves in the way of an overpowering Spirit, so that even if we are here only out of force of habit, or because we to see our friends, or because it feels safe and peaceful, not at all risky and dangerous, we are at risk of being caught up and filled with a life-changing, life-giving call to freedom and servanthood in the name of Christ. We have taken the risk of hearing the Word of God proclaimed and broken open, we have taken the risk of opening ourselves to the power of prayer in community, we have risked meeting the Risen Christ up close and personal at the communion table this morning. Putting ourselves in the way of God is risky business because God has been known to do wild and wooly things with people God calls to life in Christ!

Finally, lets think about what this parable means for Grace Church as a faith community. You have tremendous gifts and talents here –people with the gift of compassion and mercy who naturally reach out to those in need, those who have the gift of managing financial resources, those with gifts of music and singing, those with spiritual gifts of prayer, outreach, hospitality and teaching children. When God gave all of those gifts to this community, God expected you would take risks and multiply the gifts many-fold in ministry to God’s world. Each of us individually is called to make the most of our gifts and we are called as a church body to pool our resources and collectively take risks for the kingdom. If we take that call seriously, amazing results will follow.

That troubling last line of the parable may reasonably be interpreted to mean that those with a wealth of trust in God and the concomitant willingness to take risks for faith are those who will receive more – more trust, more love, more courage to keep on taking risks. From those who have not, that is those who lack that radical trust, even more will be taken away. If we do not trust God, we will not be able to take the risks that will lead to abundant life and fruitful ministry. Stewardship is about generosity and being truly generous is risky business. Being truly generous takes immense trust. To all those who have, more will be given and they will have an abundance. May we all be risk-takers for the kingdom of God, growing in an abundance of trust and love in the God who sends us into the world to do the mission of reconciliation, healing, justice, freedom and peace.

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.