Seeing the Face of God

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Exodus 33: 12-23
Matthew 22: 15-22

Moses and the Hebrews have been at Mount Sinai for an entire year. They thought by now they would have arrived in the Land of Promise and Plenty, stable and settled, with all of the problems of Egypt behind them.

They are not.

At least not the way they thought they would be. They are still at Mount Sinai, still practicing the Ten Commandments, still figuring out how to live together away from the court of Pharoah in Egypt. Still figuring out how to worship a god whose face they cannot see and whose name they cannot pronounce. Because YHWH, the one who leads the Hebrews to Sinai, refuses to be pinned down in a graven image of wood or stone. “I am who I Am,” this god says. “I will be who I Will Be.” Not always terribly comforting for those of us who want God to “make sense,” stay the same, be whomever we want God to be.

And so the Hebrews are still at Mount Sinai, stuck in a holding pattern with God: worshiping a calf of gold (choosing an image of wealth they can see over a god who refuses to be rendered in an image), jockeying with one another for control of the community when Moses is away, and just generally missing the point of the honeymoon we are supposed to be celebrating after the holy union we celebrated last Sunday.

They are frustrated. With God, with Moses, with one another, with themselves. And, let’s face it, we can relate. Because which one of us has not—at least at some point in our lives—gotten stuck in a holding pattern with the Almighty? And maybe even—shall we be really honest?—with the people the Almighty has given us to love?

The presbytery, for example. Or the Presbyterian Church of Mexico, which has severed its official ties with us over our new inclusive ordination standards. Or even our own families where the commitment may be strong, but the compassion may be waning. We get stuck in a holding pattern, just when we think we have re-committed to this holy union with God and with one another and the new life that awaits on the other side of the wilderness. And we can easily spend the better part of a year—or two—or ten—watching and waiting for some word from God that will “fix it” and guide us on our holy way once more. Just like the Hebrews at Mount Sinai did.

As we come to our lesson from Exodus this morning, Moses has finally received that much-awaited word from God: It is time to move on. It is time to let go. It is time to embrace an unknown path to an unknown land . . . following with full trust this god whose face we cannot see. But before we pack up our tents and gather extra food for the journey, Moses wants comfort and assurance on this pilgrim journey toward wholeness. And surely this is also something we can all understand. Will you really be with us God, he asks? Can we see you somehow along this path that lies ahead? Being who you are? Being who you will be?

And God responds with grace and mercy, as God is sure to do: ‘I will make all my goodness pass before you,’ God says. Just lift up your eyes to the hills, just trust that I will lead you. My face hidden from you, yes, but my glory ever before you. Just trust that I will help you, because I have called you by name, and you are precious in my sight.

The invisible, unnamable god of the Hebrews does, finally, lead the people to a Land of Promise and Plenty. The same land Jesus roams as an itinerant preacher. The same land in which a temple has been constructed as the central place of worship for God. The same temple to which Jewish pilgrims from across the Mediterranean travel for the annual Passover Festival, which is where we find our Gospel Lesson. Tuesday of Holy Week. With Jesus and his disciples joining the pilgrimage. The Passover Festival recalling, of course, the same pilgrimage of Moses and the ancient Hebrews we have been ourselves remembering these past many weeks in our worship life together.

Along the way to Jerusalem, Jewish pilgrims from across the Mediterranean sing hymns from the Psalter . . . special hymns designed specifically as pilgrimage songs, including the one that our choir just sang. ‘I lift up my eyes to the hills,’ Jesus sings, his disciples singing with him. ‘From whence will my help come?’ we pray together. ‘My help comes from the Holy One . . . the maker of heaven and earth,’ we assure ourselves along the pilgrim path. ‘The Holy One will keep you from evil. The Holy One will guard your life.’

The words of this psalm are near to Jesus’ lips as he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey to shouts of ‘Hosannah!’ Near to his lips as he enters the temple that fateful first time. Near to his lips as he lashes out in horror at the money-changing operation that leads him to turn the tables. Near to his lips, as he lights into the Pharisees for their failure to see the madness all around them perpetuated in the name of God. Near to his lips, as the Pharisees and the Herodians approach him in the famous text from Matthew that is our Gospel Lesson today.

Because the difference, in the time of Jesus, is that the hills to which Jesus lifts his eyes belong to the Romans. The Romans own the roads; the Romans own the [Jewish] kings, who are in cahoots with the empire for their own political gain; the Romans own the coins; the Romans own everything. And, of course, they pay for what they own by taxing the peasants mightily.

All harvests, all personal property, everything is subject to Roman taxation. And if you think our tax rates are too high, think again. We are talking subsistence living, we are talking about perpetual grinding debt. We are talking about Jewish authorities doing the Romans’ dirty work as hated tax collectors. We are talking about the perfect storm for inciting an armed rebellion, which happened at least three times in the first two centuries of the Common Era.

In response to this threat of rebellion, Roman guards line the streets to “keep the peace” over everything they own. Meaning you cannot take a pilgrimage, you cannot lift your eyes to the hills, you cannot seek the face of God—or even just the Temple of God—without running smack into the face of the Romans. Especially during the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival, the festival that reminds the people every year of the unnamable, faceless God who brought them out of oppression in Egypt and into the land that the Romans currently occupy. Into the land they believe should really belong to them.

To make things more scandalous, part of the practice of Roman domination is to force Roman imperial theology upon the people of the lands they conquer. They must worship the Roman emperor: the one they call, ironically, ‘Prince of Peace,’ ‘Lord and Savior,’ ‘Son of God,’ ‘Divine.’ The denarius—the Roman coin referred to in Matthew’s Gospel—has a picture of Tiberius Caesar on one side and the following caption on the other: ‘Tiberius Caesar, august and divine son of Augustus, high priest.’ It is literally brainwashing. A master stroke of social control. And it worked for a very long time. Except for the province of Judea. Because they have come to be monotheistic by the first century of the Common Era, because they absolutely must not make God into a graven image, the worship of the emperor is flat-out idolatry to them. And the coin that proclaims the divine son-ship of the emperor is the hated symbol of that idolatry.

That is why money-changers line the Temple, taking the Roman denarius and trading it for a Temple coin more fitting for the worship of God. But their exploitation of this transaction for profit at the expense of the poor stokes the ire of Jesus just two days before the encounter that is our text for this morning. And so the Pharisees and the Herodians think they have designed the perfect trap to catch Jesus in either treason or heresy. Because Jesus has already made clear his disdain for both the system of Roman taxation and the Temple collusion with that system.

But Jesus is lifting his eyes to the hills. Jesus knows from whence his help comes! Jesus trusts the Holy One to guard his life—and eventually even his death—and Jesus turns their trap right back on themselves. ‘Render unto the emperor the things that are the emperor’s,’ Jesus says. ‘And to God the things that are God’s.’

And lest we delude ourselves into thinking this is the first century version of the separation of church and state, let us remember that—to Jesus—everything belongs to God. Everything! To Jesus, the Pharisees and the Herodians reveal their idolatry, simply by asking the question.

Everything belongs to God, Madison Square Presbyterian Church. Two thousands years later, on this Sunday, October 16, 2011, everything still belongs to God. Two days after a global protest of a fractured financial system, one week before our own stewardship season begins in earnest, one and a half months into this pilgrim journey that will be our interim ministry together. The bottom line truth of our existence is that everything, everything, everything belongs to God. Everything reveals God’s face.

The validity of our own pilgrimage journey on this planet boils down to this: whose image do we see—and whose image do we seek—when we journey together as the people of God? Is it the face of whatever Caesar would demand our allegiance at the expense of the poor? Or is it the face of God—who cannot ever be fully known—but who claims every part of our lives for the good of God’s most vulnerable people?

I hope it is the latter. I think it is the latter. But we have some decisions to make if our allegiance truly is to the face of God in our midst. Because Jesus put his body on the line, he put his life on the line, he put his very faith in God on the line to say to anyone who would listen that it did not matter how much they resisted Rome if they did not care about the person sitting right next to them. That it did not matter how faithfully they paid their taxes if they did not give alms to the Lazarus begging at the gate. That it did not matter how much they prayed psalm 121 if they had bread they did not share with the hungry. That it did not matter how much they worshiped at God’s holy Temple if they did not make room for the ones they feared.

This is what the prophets have always said: if you want to see the face of God, just look around you. Just pay attention. The face of God is in every creature you meet.

Our Deacons have responded to this prophetic challenge in their commitment to respond to our neighbors in this downtown location when they ask for our help on Sunday mornings, and I hope you will support them in their endeavor. Our Session has responded to this prophetic challenge in their support of the children and their teachers at our Child Development Center next door, and I hope you will support their endeavor as well. Even our Buildings and Grounds committee has responded to this prophetic challenge in their rapid response to the overheating of our Alcoholics Anonymous guests who use the third floor for their meetings. And each one of us can respond to this prophetic challenge in whatever way God’s face is revealed in our lives. We just have to pay attention.

So take one step forward, dear friends, in the footsteps of Moses, seeking the face of God in this pilgrim journey we are on. And know that God is still your help, still your strength, still your guardian and your shield, for this life and for the next.

In the name of the One who saw the face of God in everyone he met . . .

I pray it may be so.

Amen.

This Holy Union

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Matthew 22:1-14

The “unity candle” is before us, on the table where we shared our common feast last Sunday. Where we came from north and south and east and west to celebrate a meal of abundant life. Where we came to confess we are sick with the sin and the suffering and the violence of our world—including the violence attributed to the king in the Gospel of Matthew. And we want to be made well, we want to be made whole, we want to be made one with our broken yet resurrected Christ. We want to be made one with God.

The “unity candle” is before us as a reminder of the values we share at the core of our covenant with Christ and, in turn, our covenant with one another. A covenant that is not so very different from the vows two people make when they stand “before God and these witnesses” to unite their lives “in plenty and in want; in joy and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; for as long as we both shall live.” Values of partnership and commitment, of fidelity and trust, of intimacy and shared purpose, of perseverance and hope. Values of faith.

The “unity candle” is before us as a reminder of the covenant union God has already made with us and that we have already made with God, from a time long before our time, from a mountain in a wilderness most of us will never see, where our Old Testament lesson this morning takes place. The covenant vows come from a mountain where a God who has heard the cries of a suffering people has led them out of bondage. From a mountain where a God who has a vision for a new life of promise and plenty together with these people will lead them onward to an old ancestral land. From a mountain where a God who is just beginning to become re-acquainted with this precious community will invite them to rest and simply spend some time together before moving forward with a whole new commitment.

I would go so far as to call it a “holy union,” this covenant that takes place between God and God’s people at this mountain in the wilderness of the Exodus. Even the prophets call it a “marriage”: covenant vows of steadfast love to express the mutual loyalty—the hesed—between God and God’s people—between God and us--“for as long as we both shall live.” Which is, of course, forever.

And so the “unity candle” is before us as a reminder of the promises that were made at Mount Sinai, the covenant vows that were offered in our name—and yes, I mean our name—these ancient words spoken for you and for me—which is what the parable of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew is really trying to say. That this holy union—this sacred marriage—between God and God’s people is for us, too—for the Gentiles, too—that this “holy union” with God is for all who would come to the feast.

And so we gather around the unity candle at the table of grace as a reminder of our covenant promises—the ones we call “The Ten Commandments.” To renew our first four vows, which focus our fidelity to a God of justice and liberation, and to renew our last six vows, which focus our fidelity to the people with whom we have been bound to God. Because “this holy union” with God must also require a commitment to God’s community: that we respect one another’s families; that we respect one another’s property; that we respect one another’s lives and reputations. That we expect the same respect in return.

We could, of course, paraphrase these Ten Commandments—these “holy vows”—with one Great Commandment, and a second, which is like it, (which is what Jesus did, after all): “to love the Holy One, our God, with all our heart, mind, soul and strength . . . and to love our neighbor as ourself.” And we could throw rice and blow bubbles and decorate our cars and all live happily ever after! Right?

Well . . .

 

The problem is, as everyone who has taken these very human vows knows, we just can’t seem to get it right. At least not all the time. Maybe not even most of the time. With God or with one another.  

How many of us can honestly say we have forsaken all other gods, for example? And no, I’m not talking about honoring the wisdom of other world religions. I’m talking about where we place our loyalty. Where we place our trust. I’m talking about the stock market. Or the Clinique counter. And no, I’m not suggesting we divest of our mutual funds or our makeup, I’m just saying we should be honest about where we find our identity and our security. I’m just saying we should be honest about the ways we make the God we worship into our own image, rather than the other way around.

And how many of us can honestly say we have loved our neighbor as our self? Let’s face it, if you’re like me you covet just about everything your neighbor has. Even Jimmy Carter “lusted in his heart,” after all! And even the easy vow—the one about honoring the Sabbath—the one that actually begs us not to work!—can be the hardest commitment to keep, at least in this global, integrated, double-recession economy.

The truth is, we are not good at honoring our covenant vows, with God or with one another. And God knows it. And Jesus knows it. And in his scathing critique of the chief priests and the Pharisees in Matthew’s Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus calls them on it, just as much as he did in the parable that was before us last week, and the week before, and the week before that.

And this is a hard parable to swallow, at least on its surface. A king who is throwing a wedding banquet for his son strikes out in violent rage at those who refuse the invitation. And then, just when we think the banquet really is open to everyone, the person who isn’t dressed quite right gets thrown out on his head, as well. On its surface, this parable shakes up everything we want to believe about a loving, committed, steadfast God who will not ever let us go. We could go so far as to wonder if this “holy union” is even worth it at all.

But if we pay close attention to the context of the parable, we will see that all of the parables of judgment against the chief priests and Pharisees between Palm Sunday and Easter ultimately culminate in that famous passage from Matthew 25 about what really matters in the end: that we feed the hungry; welcome the stranger; clothe the naked; care for the sick; visit the prisoner. Each of these acts is a pro-active approach to honoring the commandment to love our neighbor as our self. Which is the same as honoring the last six vows of the Ten Commandments. Which is what it means to live in holy union with God and one another in the first place.

What Jesus is trying to do in this parable is shake up the people who think they have already done just fine by God and by God’s people, thank you very much. Who think they don’t need to be shaken up. Who think they have no need of grace. Who don’t care all that much about the hungry, lonely, naked, or sick. Who really, in the end, don’t care all that much about God. They just want to crash the wedding for a free meal. And if we, too, are shaken up by the parable, shall we confess that maybe, perhaps, we might just need to be?

The apostle Paul puts it a bit more gently: “God has chosen you and made you holy people,” he says to the Colossians, he says to us. “So you should always clothe yourselves with mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other, and forgive each other. . . . Even more than all this, clothe yourself in love. Love is what holds you all together in perfect unity” (Col 3:12-14). These are the clothes that are fit for a wedding, after all. These are the clothes we would wear to renew the vows of our holy union. And, in the wedding traditions of the ancient near east, the king would have made sure every one of us was given these clothes if we could not afford them ourselves. So does our God. We just have to decide we want to wear this cloak of grace we have been given at the door. Because let’s face it, every one of us needs it.

  

In our communion last week, we were reminded that the table is open to Judas and Peter and all who fail utterly to live our covenant promises completely. “The great wedding feast,” which the Lord’s Supper is sometimes called, invites us to renew the commitment again and again and again. We just have to decide to say yes.

Right here, right now, God offers the same invitation: I love you; even now. I still want to be your God. Do you still want to be my people? And we get to say, I do.

Pastor:             You shall have no other gods before me.

Leader:            Do you take me as your God, the one on whom you will fully depend, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as we both shall live?

 

Congregation: I do.

Pastor:             You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them. 

Leader:            Do you really take me as your God, the one on whom you will fully depend, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as we both shall live?

Congregation: I do.

Pastor:             You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Holy One, who is your God.

Leader:            Do you promise to honor me? Who I really am? Because I Am Who I Am, and I Will Be Who I Will Be, and I cannot just be whoever you want me to be in the moment? Do you take me as I am, and not who you think I should be?

Congregation: I do.

Pastor:             Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath unto the Holy One, who is your God. 

Leader:            Do you promise to spend time with me? To stop working so hard for just a few hours . . . just one day a week . . . and get to know me again? To hear me speak to you again? To sing together again? To share our joys and sorrows again? To forgive what needs to be forgiven . . . to stop worrying so much about the future and just enjoy the time we have? To remember how very much we love each other? Do you promise to take time to be with me and our people?

Congregation: I do!

Pastor:             Honor your father and mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Holy One, your God, is giving you.

Leader:            With God’s help, do you promise to express gratitude for the family of God that gives you life? For the family that supports you and takes you in when you are hurting? For the family of this church that celebrates who you really are, that claims you as one of its children? Do you promise to honor your family?

Congregation: I do!

Pastor:             You shall not murder.

Leader:            With God’s help, do you promise to cherish this precious life we have been given? To celebrate life in all its fullness around us? To preserve and protect the image of God in all of creation? Do you promise to love life?

Congregation: I do!

Pastor:             You shall not commit adultery.

Leader:            With God’s help, do you promise to honor the commitments that others have made to one

another? To support the families in our midst who have made covenant promises to one another? Do you promise to honor your own covenant commitments?

Congregation: I do!

Pastor:             You shall not steal. 

Leader:            With God’s help, do you promise to accept what is rightfully yours, and no more? To be grateful for whatever abundance God has granted you? To share from that abundance with others? To receive the gifts that others offer in your time of need? To ask for help when you need it?

Congregation: I do!

Pastor:             You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

 Leader:            With God’s help, do you promise to speak only the truth as you know it? To refrain from gossip or rumors or suspicion without genuine cause? Do you promise to listen carefully to what others have said, seeking to understand as much as to be understood, praying for God’s wisdom to clarify good intentions when misunderstandings lead to difficult feelings? Do you promise to speak only the truth as you know it?

Congregation: I do!

Pastor:             You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Leader:            With God’s help, do you really promise to accept what is rightfully yours, and no more? To be grateful for whatever abundance God has granted you? To share from that abundance with others? To receive the gifts that others offer in your time of need? To ask for help when you need it?

Congregation: I do!

 

May we be united in renewed commitment to God and one another on this day and forevermore.

Amen.

Pressing Onward Toward the Goal

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Philippians 3:4b-16
Matthew 21:33-46


It is World Communion Sunday, celebrated by Presbyterians on the first Sunday in October every year since 1936, reminding us on this particular Sunday each year what we know every time we celebrate communion: that the risen Christ bids us come from east and west, north and south, across every border of human design to feast with him in eternal grace. To re-member his broken body through the sharing of bread and the pouring of wine. To continue his commitment to feed all who hunger and sate all who thirst. To proclaim boldly his death and his resurrection and his coming again in glory; to trust the heavenly banquet prepared for evermore.

It is World Communion Sunday, celebrated by Lutherans and Methodists and everyone in between, reminding us on this particular Sunday each year what we know in our hearts every time we celebrate communion: that this table to which we come—begging—does not belong to Madison Square Presbyterian Church, or to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or even—I would dare to suggest—to any organized institutional “visible church” at all . . .

The table belongs to Christ. And Christ bids every one of us come.

It is a table to which broken and suffering people have come for centuries, seeking spiritual sustenance and finding it in abundance. It is a table to which hungry and thirsty people have come, seeking literal food and drink and finding it in abundance. It is a table to which self-satisfied and self-righteous people have come, seeking forgiveness of sins and assurance of pardon and finding it in abundance.

It is a table of grace.

It is a table that takes us as we are and transforms us into who we can become. And whenever we come to the table, we quite literally come from across the globe, from across the centuries, from across all time and all space to share a meal with everyone who has come to this table before us and everyone who will come to this table after us and everyone who hungers and thirsts on this planet right now with us. Including Judas, and every one of us who knows betrayal. Including Peter, and every one of us who knows denial. Including the Beloved Disciple, and every one of us who knows what it is to witness suffering to the end. Whoever we are, we come to the table. And we are One Body. And we are at peace.

It is World Communion Sunday. And as we gather across time and space to feast with our Savior, we join with other Presbyterians in offering a tangible response to this peace that passes all understanding when we collect our special offering to the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program. And we say with our gifts of dollars and cents that we want this gift of grace we receive at the table, this gift of peace we receive at the table, to be made real in the world beyond these walls. Because we know we live in a world that is far from the promise of the peace we experience at this table. All we have to do to know that is to read the Sunday paper this morning.

I have been thinking much about this table and its gift of peace, as I have studied the Scriptures that are before us this Sunday, both in my own prayerful discernment and with our newly formed Teach the Preacher group who struggled with me to make sense of such a violent parable from Matthew’s gospel on such a Sunday devoted to peace.

If we are going to put the parable of the Wicked Tenants in the context of the table to which we come, we should note that the conversation most likely takes place on Monday or Tuesday of Holy Week in those high stakes days between Palm Sunday and Easter when tensions are high and Jesus is just beginning to draw the kind of attention that will soon have him arrested and crucified on trumped up charges later in the week. This harsh, violent parable about killing and casting out and crushing under the cornerstone is told three days before the Last Supper, four days before the crucifixion, six days before the resurrection (let us never forget that part!), in the earliest part of that Holy—yet terribly violent—Week that forms the foundation of our faith as followers of Christ. That week we re-member every time we come to the table.

In the context of the violence of that horrible—yet Holy—week, we have another vineyard and another landowner. Perhaps he is the same oikodespotes from the parable of two weeks ago, but this time he is an absentee landlord who thinks he has done everything necessary to protect the fruits of his land with a fence and a watchtower and tenants who will take care of things until the plentiful harvest. He thinks he is secure. He thinks he has paid the price for peace.

But the harvest goes terribly wrong. The tenants to whom the landowner entrust his crop decide to hoard the abundance that never belonged to them in the first place, inciting a cycle of violence that leaves multiple people injured or killed, including the beloved son of the landowner, himself. The vineyard is utterly decimated. Blood is flowing where wine should have been poured. The body broken, the blood shed. Exactly what we re-member when we come to the table.

There is too much brokenness. There is too much bloodshed.

The later Christian interpretation of this parable is, of course, that the chief priests and the Pharisees are the wicked tenants and that their “rejection of Jesus” means the kingdom of God has been given exclusively to Christians. That the rejected cornerstone (meaning Christ, himself) will crush those who rejected it. And so the cycle of violence has continued, as Christians throughout the centuries have come to this table identifying ourselves with the “good tenants” to whom the vineyard of God’s kingdom has been given and have then gone from this table vindictively using this parable to justify anti-Judaism—and anti-whateverism—in its most ugly and violent forms.

I don’t think that’s what the table is about. I don’t think that’s what the parable is about.

The chief priests and the Pharisees, to whom the parable is directed, know that what the wicked tenants have done is wrong. They are, in fact, the first to name the injustice, the first to speak the anger that would surely be in the heart of anyone whose servants and sons were all murdered by such wicked tenants. The chief priests and Pharisees will, in fact, identify themselves most closely with the landowner in this parable. Many of them are landowners, themselves, wealthy enough to leave their vineyards in the hands of trusted tenants while they tend to their religious duties in Jerusalem: their own “table of Sacraments,” if you will.

What the chief priests and Pharisees do not see—either by choice or by ignorance—is that the cost of their identification with the average household despot of the Roman Empire perpetuates further economic barriers against the most vulnerable peasants who seek the solace of their God at the Jerusalem Temple. It has been the problem with the Temple hierarchy since its inception, almost since the time of Solomon. The Jerusalem elite builds up the temple at the expense of the poor. And Jesus calls them on it, just like the prophets before him called their chief priests on it—holding up a mirror to the undercurrent of fear and greed and violence that perpetuates this system . . . and that will eventually take his own life. Which, of course, we also re-member at this table.

Two thousand years later, on this World Communion Sunday, as we re-member the stories of that horrible—yet Holy—week, can we honestly claim to be the “good tenants” who replace the religious leaders of Jesus’ day with our own more excellent fruit of the kingdom? Or does the same mirror Jesus held up to the chief priests and the Pharisees of his day reveal our own fear and greed and violence even now?

I would argue that it does. I would argue that we, like the apostle Paul, cannot yet claim to have “reached the goal of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” Just look at our hoarding. Just look at our wars. Just look at the vineyard we pollute with utter disdain. I would argue that we come to this table clinging, like Paul, to “Christ and the power of his resurrection”—especially on this World Communion Sunday—because we know there is too much suffering in this world, and we know we are too much a part of that suffering, and we know that we do not want to be anymore.

We know that we need healing and wholeness and hope and that we don’t quite have it yet in its fullness. We know that peace on earth begins with us: with our families and with our co-workers and yes, with our own congregation. We know we come to the table broken and suffering, hungry and thirsty, self-righteous and self-satisfied, desperate for a second chance.

And we get it.

Because this is a table of grace. It is a table that takes us as we are and transforms us into who we can become. So come to the table, whoever you are, wherever you are from, whatever you have done, whatever you have left undone. Come to the table. “Forget what lies behind” . . . let it go . . . it is over and done . . . it is in God's redeeming and resurrecting hands. “Strain forward to what lies ahead, as we press on tighter toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” The future is before us. The future to which Christ calls us. And it truly can be a future of peace. Because peace really is here for us in the bread and in the cup, as we re-member the broken body of Christ, and transform a week of ever-escalating violence into a meal of resurrection life. Let there be peace on earth, we pray as we come to the table; and let it begin with me.

I pray it may be so.

Amen.

Teaching and Testing

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

Exodus 17:1-7  

 

Something always gets messed up in a move.

This time, for me, it was the Brita filter. You know, the water thermos with a special compartment at the top that filters out impurities contaminating the water from the tap. [I don’t actually know a lot about water filtration. I just know that I had a Brita filter in Tucson, and I liked it, and I expected to have the same one here in San Antonio.]

For two weeks I unpacked kitchen boxes with dedicated perseverance, savoring in my mind the sediment-free stream that would flow from its spout the moment we were reunited, anticipating with ever-greater enthusiasm the moment I would finally pull my one and only Brita filter out of the last box of kitchen items to be unpacked . . . on Tuesday . . . late afternoon . . .

It was cracked.

A long, thin, irreparable crack from top to bottom. Goodbye Brita filter. Hello a few choice words from a frustrated yours truly! [I will not repeat them from the pulpit.]

Let’s just say I sympathize with the ancient Hebrews, wandering in the wilderness, wondering from where in the world their next drink of water will come. If I was this upset about a broken Brita filter after a remarkably easy move, imagine what it would be to find yourself in a land you have never known, swept up with a pack of runaways you have barely met, with no United Van Lines to get you and your belongings safely from Egypt to the Land of Promise and Plenty.  

“What in the world were we thinking?” was the phrase on the lips of just about every Hebrew making the journey. [Including a few more words we won’t say from the pulpit.] Yes, Egypt was bad. Egypt was really bad. But at least we knew where the next bottle of water was coming from. Here there is nothing to drink!

And Moses, their leader, is at his wits end to respond. It does not matter that this ragtag bunch of escaped runaways has passed through the Red Sea unscathed. It does not matter that God has just rained bread—manna from heaven—to provide for the hunger of this group of people Moses has come to lead. What matters is this present moment of life and death, this dry and weary land where there is no water to put in even a cracked Brita filter. And they honestly do not know if God is with them or not. And maybe it would have been better to have just stayed put in Egypt after all.

At least that’s what the ancient Hebrews say in the present moment of panic. And let’s face it, that’s what we all say in the present moment of whatever panic currently terrifies us, even though God has already proven over and over again that God will provide in the wilderness: through the Red Sea, through the manna from heaven, through the quail. And God continues to prove it, as God leads Moses and a group of elders to a gushing stream from a rocky place in a nearby mountain, to an abundant waterfall that was there all along, but just didn’t happen to come from the Brita filter covering the contaminated tap water flowing abundantly from their enslavement in Egypt.

Something always gets messed up in the move, but God somehow always finds a way to make it better. That is what God is trying to say to the ancient Hebrews wandering in the wilderness. That is what God is trying to say to all of us wandering in the wilderness.

Because the story of the ancient Hebrews wandering in the wilderness is the classic story of pilgrimage, of setting out on a journey of faith with all of the twists and turns, the teaching and testing, the leaving behind and the embracing of the new that are necessary when God invites us to band together on a journey of grace to a place we do not yet know but that we have been told holds promise and opportunity, abundance and wholeness, milk and honey. Peace.

We are part of that pilgrimage every Sunday when we gather in the name of Christ, celebrating the goodness of what God has already done for us and for our people, naming our present panic—a job on the line, or a child that is sick, or an anger that refuses to abate, or a faith that has come crashing to its core—and finding somewhere in this holy hour in this holy space a river of life to sustain us on the journey, just like the Hebrews did in the waters of Meribah. A word of hope in the Call to Worship, a note of grace in a song of trust, a conviction revived in a prayer or a reading, a challenge or opportunity from the meditation on the Word.

When we come to worship every Sunday, we remember this pilgrim journey we are on—this pilgrim journey God’s people have always been on—and we trust that somehow, someway, God will bring us home.

And God does!

I think that is why your “Bienvenidos” is so important to you, why you demanded it back at the beginning of your worship service after you felt like it was taken away. The presentation of the gifts is kind of like the tabernacle the ancient Hebrews carried across the desert, forming the center of their campground from one movement to the next, the place they could always count on, no matter where in the wilderness they found themselves. And I applaud you for it. It is the hallmark of who you are at Madison Square Presbyterian Church, welcoming God’s pilgrim people to whatever home we can find as we wander our way through the wilderness that is our very lives.

So now here we are, settling in to our third week together as interim pastor and pilgrim people, and the welcome is genuine and heartfelt . . . and it seems timely to step back a bit and reflect for a minute on what it is we are actually doing together in this “interim” ministry. Or, perhaps more appropriately, what it is God might be doing with us on this particular pilgrimage that is ours in this season at Madison Square.

Like the ancient Hebrews, we, too, are setting out on a journey of faith through an unknown land to a promise of hope on the other side, are we not? Or, more accurately, we are meeting at Mount Sinai to journey the rest of the way together. We are a group of people—like them—joined by a common heritage, bound together by a sense that a just and generous God wants freedom and wholeness and abundant life for all God’s people, bound and determined to find that grace by any means necessary, bound and determined to find a “permanent” pastor who will not lead this community back into Egypt, bound and determined to prepare this community to receive that new pastor well.

Like the ancient Hebrews, we may hit a few bumps in the road—and perhaps we have already—and it may take a little longer than we really think it should—and perhaps it has already. But this is a pilgrimage, not a sprint to the finish . . . a way of life, not something to “get through” so we can start the “real” living again. And there is much to be learned along the way if we take the time to pay attention.

The Hebrews needed a census of the people they actually had traveling with them—not unlike our own efforts to update our membership rolls, so they took the time to stop and count. And they needed a set of shared guidelines to organize their daily living—not unlike our newly adopted bylaws, so they took the time to stop at Sinai and receive the Ten Commandments. And they needed a new class of elders and deacons trained in the ways of the wilderness, so they took the time to re-organize their leadership in patterns that served their needs more effectively and fairly.

And they needed to work through their disagreements and head off the opposing tribes trying to send them back to Egypt, so they took the time to debate their differences and stand firm in the face of backlash and mistrust. And they just plain needed to let go of what was no longer working for them in order to receive a new opportunity for something different to emerge—not unlike me letting go of my Brita filter. So it took them a while. And it will take us a while. But once we are ready for the Land of Promise and Plenty, we will really, truly be ready!

Because what the ancient Hebrews realized through their pilgrimage in the wilderness—and what I hope we will learn right along with them—is that the journey was, in fact, the destination. Everything they learned in the wilderness sustained them in the land to come. Pilgrimage became a way of life, not just a practice in the moment, and the trust in God to provide for them and strengthen them through whatever wilderness they found themselves in became the walk of faith that is ours still today.

Are you really with us, God, in this journey through an unknown land? they wanted to know. Yes, I really am, and I will be with you to the end, God responds.

That was what God was teaching them in the wilderness. That is how they were testing God in return. And that is what God is teaching us, too, here at Madison Square as we work our way through “The Developmental Tasks of the Interim Period,” which is what we call the intentional transition from one installed pastor to the next. Like the ancient Hebrews, God really is forming Madison Square Presbyterian Church as a whole new people, a whole new community, in a new place with a new way of relating to one another—and, I would dare to suggest, even a new way of relating to God. And it is going to take some time to figure that new way out, just like it did for the ancient Hebrews.

What I want to offer you, as your interim pastor, is the stability and trust and joy that comes with embracing this pilgrimage as a way of life, rather than a means to a destination, learning over and over again that God will find a way to provide for us just at the moment we have given up hope. That God will fashion us into a new community, just when we have decided we cannot belong. That God will teach us and test us, just when we have caved in to the cloud of unknowing. That in these times of pilgrimage, we discover more deeply who we are, and we trust more intently whose we are, and we become more fully who God created us to be. In fact, that is always our invitation as a people of faith. It’s just that now we get to pay closer attention to it.

What I have learned from you in these few short weeks is that you already have everything you need to sustain you on this pilgrim journey: you have la fuente de identidad, the water of your baptism . . . reminiscent of that passage of freedom through the Red Sea . . . grounding us in the promise of God’s grace for the journey; you have la mesa de sustento, the meal of manna and unfiltered water flowing from the most unlikely places . . . nourishing us just at the moment we have given into despair; and you have el libro de memoria y promesa, the stories of God’s walk with our people in the past, encouraging us in the present toward the future hope that is life eternal in that Land of Promise and Plenty.

In the weeks and months to come on this pilgrim journey that is ours together, I will simply remind you of what you already know: that God is still with us even now; that prayer and perseverance will see us through whatever panic emerges along the way; that who we will become may yet be even more exciting than who we have been; and that at the end of the day, God will always . . . always . . . always welcome us home.

This is always what it has meant to be God’s pilgrim people. With or without our Brita filter. Amen.

Another Day, Another Dollar?

By Gusti Linnea Newquist

Exodus 16:1-15
Matthew 20:1-16

Every day is a gift from God, the ancient Israelites sing, as Moses assures them God will feed their hunger and quench their thirst. Every day is a gift from God, we have joined them in singing when we, too, gather around the bread of life, as the manna from heaven falls, as the heavens “rain bread,” which is how the Hebrew is so beautifully translated. Every day is a gift from God, we celebrate with them, soaking up the raining bread in the wilderness of Sin—just like we have been soaking up the raining rain this weekend—in a land that is so barren of life in the eyes of the ancient Israelites that even Egypt, with its whips and chains of slavery, seems like a welcome—and lush—alternative.

But every day is a gift from God, the ancient Israelites start singing, when the raining bread starts to fall and the quail crop up from the cracked and parched earth. And they have enough to eat, and it is enough for everyone, no matter how rich or poor or young or old. No matter how able-bodied. It is not a luxury, of course. It is not fried chicken and apple pie. But they have their daily bread. And so do we. Because in the middle of a dry and weary land, when even Egypt seems like a better alternative, Moses thunders, “God. Will. Provide!” And God does!

It is a question that is ever before us, is it not? Will God really provide? Jobs? Security? Peace? Rain for a drought-ridden state? These economic times—and this literal drought—have forced us all to reconsider our basic assumptions about money and savings and grace and providence. The truth is, if we are really honest, we would be hard-pressed to find anyone among us who is not wandering in the wilderness when it comes to money. It is a symbol of our ego, our security, our emotional rootedness. Plain talk about money is in many ways more threatening to us than plain talk about sexuality. The truth is, if we are really honest, we might rather believe God will just make it all better for us if we complain loudly enough, like the Israelites did with Moses. That bread really will rain from heaven or money really will grow on trees so we don’t have to think about it anymore.

But according to the Bible, God’s provision for daily bread extends well beyond the miraculous manna in the wilderness. God’s provision for daily bread also includes an emphatic set of teachings for the community to live by once they have settled into the Land of Promise and Plenty. The Law, we call these teachings in English; Torah in Hebrew. And in the teachings of Torah, once the people have settled into abundant life across the Jordan, each tribal family is assigned sufficient land holdings to meet their basic needs for generations to come. Enough for everyone—rich, poor, young, old—to receive their daily bread from the abundance of the land they have been assigned. Not so different from the miracle of manna in the wilderness, actually. Only this time, the miracle comes from human sharing of God’s abundance. Which is, given the human propensity for hoarding, perhaps the greater miracle.

Torah maintains a special concern for the most vulnerable among us: the widow and the orphan, to be precise in biblical language, but really anyone who has fallen into perpetual poverty. According to Torah, the wealth of the land should be redistributed every fifty years so that those who have fallen behind can start fresh with a level playing field where debts are canceled, where indentured servants are set free, where God’s wilderness promise of enough for everyone becomes the literal law of the land. It is Basic Biblical Economics: 1) God has given us abundance; 2) We are required to share it; 3) Inequities must be reconciled over time. (see Leviticus 25. Yes. Leviticus!)

We pray for these biblical economic principles every Sunday in our Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread,” we ask. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” we pray. We call forth, as Jesus did, the core of the teachings of Torah, the core of the tradition through which God has ensured God’s faithful provision for all of humanity, the core of the tradition Jesus comes to fulfill by his very presence among us.

Because by the time we get to first century Judea, where that itinerant preacher named Jesus consolidates the core of Torah into what we call The Lord’s Prayer and starts sharing the core of Torah with his disciples through parables about the kingdom of heaven, just about everyone has forgotten the law of the land. The Romans have taken over. The tribes have all been scattered. Landowning elites now own great estates producing luxury crops of wine and oil. Oikodespotes, these landowners are called in Greek: oiko, meaning “household,” and despotes meaning—well—let’s just say this is where we get the English word despot. They foreclosed on loans, they took over peasant farms, they drove the little guy out of business, and they drove up food prices. Intentionally. Without mercy. The peasant farmers, themselves, often had no choice but to start working for the very same landowner who had taken their land!

By the time we get to first-century Judea, where an itinerant preacher named Jesus starts sharing parables with his disciples about the kingdom of heaven, the Land does not seem so full of Promise and Plenty anymore. It has become far easier to believe manna will fall again from the sky than to believe a landowner will actually live by the teachings of Torah. I suppose we could say the same thing today.

Jesus says it can be different. Jesus demands it to be different! “The kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 20, verses 1-16, “is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.” And already we who are disciples are stunned. This is a landowner unlike any other “household despot” that comes to mind when you hear about the 1^st century equivalent to an “overpaid CEO of a multinational corporation.”

Unlike his peers who would normally never associate with the day laborers at the lowest pay grade in his company, this guy actually takes the time to go hire them himself. He seeks them out early in the morning, while most of us are still sipping our morning coffee and reading the paper. A landowner wants to talk to a day laborer. A CEO wants to talk with a mail clerk. And this, in itself, really could be something like the reign of God.

But the story goes on: “When [the landowner] went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go to the vineyard.’”

And of course there is no explanation for why all the laborers did not receive work that morning or why the landowner did not just hire them all in the first place. But if the situation in Tucson of day laborers who gather at churches to wait for work is any indication, there simply were not have enough jobs for everyone. At least not according to secular economic principles. And many of the laborers, themselves, have a code of ethics to follow. “Maria has a sick child and can’t pay the doctor,” they might say. “She should go first in line.” Or “Joey hasn’t worked in a week. He really needs the money.” Watching their own chances fade as they day wears on, hoping against hope something else will come along. And it does, in the kingdom of heaven! God really does find a way to provide: through a landowner who has finally figured out how to talk to the people who work the land, through a landowner who realizes he really does have enough to share, through a household despot who converts to the basics of biblical economics: 1) God has given us abundance, he realizes; 2) We are required to share it, he decides; 3) Inequities must be reconciled over time. And now is always the time.

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the managers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong’ did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first and the first will be last.” And that is the final teaching of Basic Biblical Economics.

The traditional interpretation of this parable is, of course, that God is the landowner, and we are the laborers. That God wants to give us abundant life by God’s good grace, and we who are human want to believe we can earn it. And we can’t. Because it is a gift. Always and forever, a gift.

God wants everyone to have our daily bread. Period. And God knows this will not happen unless we all do our part—landowner and day laborer, alike—to trust God has truly given us enough, to trust we can share it well, to trust we can find a way to reconcile inequalities.

We at Madison Square have a small but significant way to practice the basic biblical economics of our Scripture lessons today. God has given us the stewardship of this small vineyard, here on the corner of Camden and Lexington, to cultivate for the glory of God to practice biblical economics. We are a community of faith that gathers from across the city to call this place home every Sunday of every week, that gathers around the table for our own manna from heaven every month. We are a community of children that seeks wholeness and hope in the Child Development Center every Monday through Friday. We are a community of recovering alcoholics who find this church to be the one place they can relinquish their lives to a higher power. We are a set of buildings to maintain—or tear down—and a mission of justice and peace to proclaim beyond our walls.

You probably were not expecting a Stewardship sermon this Sunday, but here it is: God has given us everything we need to provide well for each of these ministries. In fact, God has given us so much that we could probably double our provision for the ministry that is before us. We just have to decide we want to do it, following the lead of that converted household despot landowner who took the time to know the people, who figured out he had a lot more to offer than he thought he did. And we do, too.

Amen.

The Forgiveness Project

by Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist

“I needed to forgive him,” Mary Johnson said of the man who had murdered her 20 year old son at a late-night party in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1993. “I needed to forgive him,” Mary said, “so I could help other mothers in pain.”

Ten years after enduring the worst pain a mother can experience, ten years after describing the man who murdered her son as “an animal . . . [who] deserved to be caged,” Mary contacted Oshea Israel in prison to see if he would receive a visit from her. After an initial refusal, Oshea finally said yes. “I had to be a man,” Oshea said to himself when Mary made the first move. “[I had to] communicate with his mother.” 

It was not an easy reunion. Although she had asked for the meeting, Mary’s anger and hurt were still strong, even ten years later. She had thought Oshea should have a stronger sentence. She had thought parole should not ever be an option. She had become reclusive and unable to look at her son’s photos. The pain was visceral, even then. But she was a Christian woman who believed it was her duty to forgive, seventy times seven, if need be. And so she prayed and fasted for twenty-one days before meeting with Oshea to clarify her intentions and to focus on forgiveness. 

Oshea, for his part, had spent the past ten years blaming Mary’s son for the crime. Oshea claimed he had been provoked in the heat of the moment and that Mary should have raised her son better than she did. But when Mary made the first move toward reconciliation, Oshea knew it was time to take stock of his life over the past ten years, to take responsibility for his actions. He realized, upon reflection, that he had changed and grown in ways he had not anticipated. He had found the courage to walk away from the gang that had stoked the violence in the first place. He had pursued a GED and was ready for a fresh start. So he prepared to meet the mother of the man he had murdered ten years earlier with a spirit of repentance and respect, unsure of what to expect in return.

Ten years after the crime, ten years after the trial, ten years after the sentencing and imprisonment, Mary and Oshea met once again. They spoke for two hours, both of them praying for an attitude of grace. And as they talked, Mary realized Oshea’s life was very similar to her son’s. They had both liked the same sports, they had both experienced the same difficulties in school, they had both been seduced by the gangs that had escalated the violence that fateful night. In the honest sharing of their lives, Oshea felt a strong connection to Mary, almost as if she were his second mother. “I caused her pain,” he realized. “But we are loving each other through it.” 

As their reunion drew to a close, Mary said to Oshea, “I forgive you. I let you go,” and he hugged her tight in response. Mary cried and started to fall with the weakness of relief, but Oshea held her up, supporting her with his strength. And as they stood there, hugging and crying, ten years after he had murdered her son, Mary literally felt hatred and bitterness leave her body. She literally broke free of the chains around her soul the murder of her son had become. And so did Oshea, even though he was still technically in prison. Both of them were freed by forgiveness.

By the time Oshea was finally released on parole, Mary was able to welcome him wholeheartedly back into society. He moved in next door to her, and they began to look out for one another, like mother and child. Mary now wears a locket with a picture of her son on one side and a picture of Oshea on the other. And Mary’s dream of forgiving Oshea in order to be able to help other mothers in pain has become a reality. She formed a non-profit organization to help others who have lost children to violence. Mary and Oshea speak together throughout their community about forgiveness and healing. And their story was the feature article this week for the “Heroes Among Us” department of People Magazine. Truly Mary and Oshea are both heroes among us, an inspiration to all who would heed the gospel call to forgiveness and hope that is our Scripture lesson this morning. 

In any other week, the story of Mary and Oshea would have made it to the front cover of the magazine and we would have heralded their courage as a hallmark of hope. But this week, of course, the cover story is about September 11^th, ten years later. This week, the locket hanging around the neck of the 9-year old Lauren McIntyre on the cover of People Magazine holds a photo of her father, Donald, a Port Authority Police Officer who was killed in the Second Tower of the World Trade Center. And in honor of her and all the children whose fathers died on that day before they were born, this week of remembering and re-telling the stories of September 11, 2001 takes precedence over all else, as it should.

What does the call to forgive “seventy times seven” really mean for us on the 10^th anniversary of September 11^th? Are we supposed to forgive the hijackers the way Mary forgave Oshea? Are we supposed to forgive Osama bin Laden, himself? Or is it our own government giving in to the temptation to torture we are called to forgive? Do we just “let go” of the worst day in the history of our country as a moment in time to hand over to God without question or comment? Or is something else going on with the forgiving king and the unforgiving servant of that might encourage us and challenge us and strengthen us as a community for the gospel ministry that is ours today, ten years later?

Biblical scholar William Herzog reminds us in his analysis of the Parables [of Jesus] as Subversive Speech that we do well to remember the true nature of kingship in the time of Jesus. When we, who live in a democracy, hear the parable today, we automatically assume the king is parallel to God. And we assume the king is benevolent. But kings in the time of Jesus are not to be confused with God! The kings who ruled in the time of Jesus had a pact with the Roman Emperor to “keep the peace” by squelching the masses. It was a cycle of violence so vast and so excessive and so insidious that it made the gang violence in Minneapolis that ended the life of Mary’s son look like child’s play. 

The kings of the first century Roman Empire exacted severe taxes from the peasant population to enhance their material wealth and expand their influence and power. Most peasants were radically in debt for their entire lives. The kings employed a servant class of bureaucrats to prop up their authority and claim their taxes by any means necessary. And the kings kept a standing guard of merciless thugs ever at the ready to enforce this system of exploitation through torture. The king, the servants, and the thugs were a closed system of powerful elitism that propped up about 2% of the population at the expense of the other 98%. All of them were corrupt, all of them were ruthless, all of them were beyond the scope of the true reign of God.

The disciples listening to Jesus talking about a king, his servants, and the thugs who implemented torture on a far-too-often basis would have had a visceral negative reaction. They would not naturally have associated either themselves or God with any of the characters of this parable. They would not have believed it possible to compare a king, his servants, and his thugs to what Jesus calls “the kingdom of God.” 

And that is precisely the point! 

For one brief moment, in the vision of Jesus of the reign of God, a benevolent, messianic king overcomes the expectations everyone holds of his ruthless, vindictive nature and breaks the cycle of violent exploitation once and for all. For one brief moment, in the vision of Jesus of the reign of God, a benevolent messianic king completely forgives a debt that could never have been repaid in the first place. (10,000 talents is the equivalent of 150,000 years of labor!) 

And, most important, in the vision of Jesus of the reign of God, a merciless king finally showing mercy is not just an individual act of forgiveness designed to alleviate the suffering of one individual person. Forgiving such a massive debt was for the good of the whole kingdom. It meant the servant no longer needed to extract the money from the peasants. It meant the thugs no longer needed to beat them all into submission. It meant the gap between the rich and the poor could close just a small bit. It meant a new era of justice and peace could be ushered in. In the vision of Jesus of the reign of God, the king would join the servant in promoting healing and forgiveness throughout the kingdom, ending the cycle of violence once and for all. Just like Mary and Oshea as new mother and new son working together to heal their community through Mary’s non-profit organization in Minneapolis. 

That was the hope many of us held in the early days after September 11^th, was it not? We lit candles of healing love, we donated blood in droves, we told story after story of the “heroes among us”: of fire department chaplain Father Mychal Judge administering last rites to a dying firefighter just before he died, himself; of the “man in the red bandana” who led people to safety on the 104^th floor; of the director of security for Morgan Stanley, who had developed a rigorous evacuation plan prior to September 11^th for the 22 floors in the south tower occupied by his company. 2500 employees left the building alive, following the sound of his voice on a bullhorn. He had even begun to break into song in order to lift up their spirits as they escaped.

Story after story lifted all of our spirits in the early days after September 11^th, when we pulled together as a nation, when we clung to the best that was in us in order to drown out the worst that had befallen us. And the entire world rallied to our side because the entire world was impacted right along with us. Thirty-three countries lost citizens that day. (And that is only counting the ones who were “documented.”) For me, September 11, 2001 was the final event that propelled me into the ordained ministry. I saw how religion was being used for evil—and not just the religion of Islam—I saw how religion was stoking violence rather than promoting peace, and I wanted my life to be about proclaiming the radical decision to end the cycle of violence once and for all that Jesus describes in the parallel of the forgiving king. Even if we only know it just for a brief moment. Because sometimes the brief moment is all we will ever know.

Some would say we have strayed beyond all measure from the hope and the goodness that emerged from the chasm that was September 11^th. Some wonder if we gave in too far to the temptations of anger and fear that we have no hope of reclaiming our souls. 

I think the gospel says something different. 

It took ten years for Mary to forgive Oshea, but she finally came around to it. The moment of healing could come, though, only after she was honest about her grief, only after she was honest about her pain, only after she was honest about her anger. But when the moment came to forgive, she was ready. She found a way to let go. And her letting go released the one who had wounded her so deeply. And if they can do it, so can we.

It may take a lot longer than ten years to forgive something as traumatic as the terror of September 11^th. It may take a lot longer than ten years to resurrect the best that is in us that emerged on that day. It may take a lot longer than ten years for the cycle of violence we have accepted as “just the way things are” will turn into the reign of God ending violence once and for all. 

But if we learn anything from the story of Mary and Oshea, if we learn anything from the story of the forgiving king and the unforgiving servant, if we learn anything from the stories of September 11, 2001, what we know for sure is that forgiveness is a process and not a final product. What we know for sure is that good can win over evil in the end. What we know for sure is that all of us—every one of us—stand desperately in need of God’s grace. I have often considered that Jesus tells us to forgive seventy-times-seven times because it takes that long to get it right.

Jesus was, after all, responding to a question from Peter about how to live together as a small community of believers, in the heart of an empire that had not yet grasped the vision of the reign of God, that was still—just like us—caught up in the cycle of unending violence that rendered every one of them helpless to despair. 

But with you, Jesus tells Peter, with you, Jesus tells the gathered community that is the church, with you  it is different. With you, the reign of God has already taken root. With you, the practice of forgiveness in the small things must be front and center, seventy times seven times: naming the hurt and pain and anger, to be sure, but coming out on the other side as better people, stronger people, more hopeful people. Because once you have practiced forgiving the small things, Jesus implies in this parable, then you just might be able to forgive the big things. And what better place to start practicing than the church?

The church, according to our Presbyterian Constitution, is “the provisional demonstration of the kingdom of God,” the community that has claimed the alternative vision of Christ as its own, the community that has said we want our lives to be about healing and hope and yes, even forgiveness, responding to the grace of the benevolent, messianic king in the parable. Responding to the real-life witness of Mary and Oshea in Minneapolis. Responding to the priest who gave his life tending the immortal soul of another. The church is the place where we say we do not want to be bound up in anger and vengeance and violence and victimization anymore. It is the place where we say we are family—every one of us, God’s family—and God has given us a new lease on life. 

In the church, we still dare to believe that forgiveness and healing really are possible. That a new life together really is possible. That whatever pain we have caused, that whatever pain we have endured, God still can make one family of us all. God still work all things together for good. God still can make a resurrection out of any crucifixion!

So let’s be the “provisional demonstration of the kingdom of God” together on this tenth anniversary of September 11^th, on this first Sunday of our new ministry together, claiming the grace of God grace as our own, speaking the truth in love to another, praying for a spirit of repentance and respect in our dealings with one another. Because if we do that—when we do that!—I promise you the world around us will start to follow suit. And the radical reign of God that was the vision of Jesus will start to take root beyond our walls. And the violence and the suffering we think is inevitable will one day be no more. And the world will truly, one day, be at peace. 

I pray it may be so. 

Amen.