Of Giants

Good Morning!  You know, I’ll just come out and say it this morning, I love All Saints Sunday.  I’ll even say it again, I LOVE All Saints Sunday.  It is a celebration of incredible meaning and significance! But people tell me, “Keven, aren’t you Lutheran?  Aren’t the saints more of a Roman Catholic thing?”  In response to the abuses of his time, our own Martin Luther did say that the living needed far more tending than the dead, but even Luther believed the departed saints were to be seen as a gift. 

                “We honor departed saints,' he says,"…so that we might be encouraged and grounded in the Doctrine of Faith.  It is the same Doctrine which the saints also taught and by which they lived.  Thank God for His favor in giving them to us.”

                All saints day is an amazing day, it is the one day a year that we acknowledge we belong to a very special community, one that transcends life and death.  The one day where we speak openly of the powerful spiritual bond that exists within us, through us, and between us.  So enormous, so penetrating, so incredible is this bond that neither death nor our own human sin can break it.  But All Saints Day is more than this, too.  All Saints day is also about another gospel, the gospel of the Holy Spirit.  It is a day we can look back and see the amazing things God has done throughout human history.  With All Saints Day, we recognize that God is not some far away clockmaker, the unmoved mover who merely set everything in motion.  With All Saints Day, we see that God is present and active amongst his children, the most moved mover, who works constantly through and beyond time to bring redemption to His world.

                Of whom then shall we speak?  This list spans millennia, authored by the third person of the Trinity Himself, whose work in human hearts produced heroes that outnumber the stars in the sky.   Shall we speak of giants?  Shall we speak of men like Augustine of Hippo who with naught but pen and paper shaped the Western World? 

“Our heart is restless, (O God), until it finds rest in you” he writes, and to those in this age of Science who will listen he says “that miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature.” And that “Faith is to believe in things you do not see, and the reward of faith is to see what you believe.”

Perhaps instead we should speak of the Eastern Fathers, like St. John the golden-tongued, and a more tireless advocate for the poor you will not find.  “No matter how just your words may be, you ruin them when you speak in anger” St John says, and “if you cannot find Christ in the beggar at your door, you will not find him in your church.”

Perhaps we should speak of American giants, giants like Roger Williams who proclaimed that godly religion cannot be forced religion, that belief only occurs when a person freely chooses it.  Or giants like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Giants like Dorothy Day, Francis Willard, Billies Sunday and Graham.

Or should we talk of Lutheran Giants?  Should we talk of Martin Luther, who defied not only the Pope but his Church for the sake of Christ and the good news?  Should we talk of Phillip Spener and August Francke, Pietists who in a world that would talk endlessly about angels and head of pins pointed us all back to the spiritual needs of the people.  Should we speak of unsung heroes like Phillip Melancthon, the great systematizer of Lutheran Theology, or perhaps we should speak of Lutheran war-heroes like King Gustavus of Sweden, whose actions brought about the end of the thirty years war and ensured Protestantism’s survival to the present day.

But perhaps, this will not be so useful to you.  Perhaps, try as you might, you feel a disconnect between these people and you.  You may say to me, “Yes, Keven, I know that Christians everywhere and everywhen share a bond beyond understanding.  I know that despite what the world tells us about the church, as broken as we are, we’ve done things that moved and shaped the world for the better.  Because of people like these we have advances in medicine that cure the sick, because of people like these we can produce food on a scale unimagineable to the ancient world.  Because of people like these, cruel punishments have been outlawed, slavery for the first time in the history of the human race is called what it ought - kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment, and though it may be small the voiceless are being given a voice in ways that were not there before.  I know that these men and women stood against the tide and in the end it was the tide that fled.  But, Keven, I am nothing like them.  What do I have in common with greats like these?

Ladies and Gentlemen they have a word for that sentiment, it’s the same stuff they make at Oscar Mayer.  It’s called Baloney.  These men and women are no different from you in any way, save in only one thing.   Let us look closely at our gospel lesson if you wish to know what it is, what is we are missing is there, imbued throughout the text itself.  Our gospel lesson has been called Luke’s version of the sermon on the mount.  Let’s read it again and see if you can catch it.

“Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. "Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.  Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. "Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. "Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.”

"But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.  If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt.  Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again.  Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

Did you catch it?  Do you see what you’re missing?  Do you see the one thing that gave every single saint their power? 

It’s hope.

Hope!  Hope in a God that is both good and powerful, hope that whatever things look like now, no matter how bad they are, hope that the Light of God can and will drive back that darkness, that circumstances can and will change.  The poor, the hungry, the despised, Jesus says, these are the blessed of this life, because look what God will do for and through them.   Do you struggle financially to even keep food on the table, that is great news!  For it means you are compassionate and not greedy, it means that you share with others whatever you are given.  Most blessed are you!  For it is to you that kingdom of God belongs.  Are you hungry now?  Do your needs outweigh your ability to meet them?  Blessed are you, for God sees you and will not keep you that way.  Are you despised?  Do people hate you because of your skin, your family, your faith?  Blessed are you!  For you have joined the halls of heroes, for that is what the forces of evil did to anyone that God ever sent.

But you who are wealthy, do you earn far more than you need?  Do you enjoy luxuries while your brothers and sisters starve?  Do you feast, tending to your own needs while others go without?  I warn you that you have received your compensation, Jesus says, and it is far less than what they will get.  Yes for those who fill their stomachs now, enjoy it while you may, for the Lord sees that you do this at the expense of others.  Do not seek after wealth or fame, because in doing so you join with every villain that has ever been doomed to destruction.  But there is hope for you too, because unlike the poor, the hungry, and the despised you have a choice.  You don’t have to be this way, you can choose to be generous and compassionate, and know that God will see you.

And so Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to do good to those who despise us, not because those actions are without cost, but because the power and hope of God far outweigh them.  The chance to win a brother back to God is worth far more than a shirt, stolen goods, or a second strike on the cheek.  Love fills the world with good people, it creates the environment we all long to live in.  But we don’t do it, because in the end we have no hope.  We hoard, we despise, we lash out in hate because we don’t believe there is any hope for something better.

Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, do you think Martin Luther posted his 95 theses because he thought they’d have no effect?  Do you think Dietrich Bonhoeffer started an underground seminary in Nazi Germany because he thought it would be pointless?  Did Julian of Norwhich proclaim the Motherhood of God because she thought no one would believe her?  Did Athanasius of Alexandria, a short black man from Africa, pound his pulpit, persuading people of the rightness of the Trinity from exile, because he thought all there was left to do was give up?

NO!  Ladies and gentlemen, if you feel at all disconnected from this community, if you look upon these greats in the Christian faith and see no way you can be like these giants it is only because you have not hope enough to look in the mirror and see your own stature.  I speak of giants today in the Christian church because within this community there exists nothing else.  If you do not feel like a giant, it is only because the cares of this world have you hunched.  You are a child of God, and your worth and ability far exceed your circumstances.  As C.S. Lewis so poignantly put, there are no mere mortals, so quit believing that you are one.

You were made to do incredible things!  You are part of a community that has shaken the very foundations of the world .  As broken as we are, by the grace of God we are the monsters lurking under the devil’s bed.  So one-sided has God made this battle that hating us, starving us, robbing us and beating us does not work.  The only tactic left for the forces of evil is to convince us, tempt us out of our belief that this world can be better and that we can make it that way.  Do not give into them!  This community is ours by birthright!  Do not let anyone or anything convince you otherwise.  Your participation in this eternal gathering of heroes makes you a giant, so stand tall and let the world quake at your every step.

Amen.

The Reformation and Acceptance

Wow.  It’s going to be 500 years.  To be honest it’s hard to know what to say.  Like the anniversaries of so many momentous events, whether they be of the birth of a nation, the calamity and tragedy of an attack, or the commemoration of the actions of a lone priest and Bible professor in Wittenberg, Germany, it is difficult, indeed, I daresay impossible, to sum up in one 15 minute speech all the change, all the emotion, all the personal meaning that would be found in four small nails on the doors of that rather unassuming little church half a millennium ago.  I mean, what do we say?  How do we even begin?  Do we quote important speeches, do we go into history and catechisms and confessions?  I don’t believe I could do all of that justice in a semester let alone in just one sermon. 

But as a Protestant, as a long standing fan of Mr. Martin Luther, and as someone who  simply tries to embody the best of what the Reformation stands for, I believe all of the Reformers, be they Lutheran, Calvinist, Anabaptist or otherwise, would simply say, “Don’t”.  They would say, “We did not fight for the Reformation … we did not fight for denominations, for seminaries, or 16^th century theology - we fought for the gospel.  We weren’t seeking something new; new traditions, new ways of doing things; rather we sought the return of something very old – something that existed from the very beginning.  We wanted the Word unburdened and that is all.” 

As such, ladies and gentlemen, I do not believe I have it within me to describe to you all that the Reformation means.   I can only take to heart its one true lesson: Preach the gospel … and do so by means of a Pixar movie.  Ok, I admit it.  I made that last part up.    

“Pixar?”, you may ask.  What do the Reformation, our gospel lesson, and Pixar have to do with one another?  Well, in this case quite a bit.  Amongst many of Pixar’s films, there is one in particular that has stuck with me over the years.  It is a film called, “The Incredibles”.  Now, if you are not familiar with this title, “The Incredibles” details the story of Robert and Helen Parr, Mr. and Mrs. Incredible.  They are not just normal every day people.  They are superheroes, but they are forced to live like normal every day people.  In a society that no longer values the miraculous, in a world that no longer wonders at the impossible, Robert and Helen Parr must hide their incredible gifts  - even if it means they can no longer help others in the process.  Indeed, instead of stopping robberies and saving innocents from disaster, Robert now works in the insurance industry of all places, and his boss is Robert’s opposite in every conceivable way.  Robert, of course, has his problems, but overall he is a compassionate, selfless, and loving human being - a big man with a big heart who is forced to exist in a world that’s suffocating him with its smallness.  Gilbert Huph, however, is Robert’s supervisor.  In contrast to Robert’s big-ness, Gilbert Huph is a reprehensible little rat of a man.  He is greedy, underhanded; He is the kind of man that only does the right thing when the law requires him to, and he make’s Bob’s life absolutely miserable. 

Gilbert Huph, you see, is a Zaccheus character.  That is who Zaccheus is in the text.  Zaccheus is not some misunderstood short-fellow with a heart of gold.  In the first century he is a short, ridiculous little money monger, a chief tax collector who got wealthy selling out his own countrymen - the very people he was supposed to help.  He is cold, He is uncaring, … and he has all the power.  No, in our gospel lesson, Zaccheus is not the hero.  

But this doesn’t sound like the Zaccheus we know at all does it?  Zaccheus isn’t supposed to be this way.  He’s the example we love to set for ourselves.  “Be like, Zaccheus!” we’ve been told.  Zaccheus did everything he could to meet Jesus. Be bold and let nothing stop you in your quest to meet the Christ.  This has largely been the message of American Protestantism.    It’s a good message.  As one of your pastors, yes, I implore you to not let anything hinder you from meeting Christ.  I guarantee you, you will not be the same because of it.  But while I would agree that this message is good, as a believer in the Reformation and what it stands for, I must be honest.  The message is good, but it is not accurate.  Indeed, I would not only call it inaccurate but a dangerous diversion from what Luke is trying to say.  It is not the first time the Church has done such a thing.  The Church over time co-opts many of these stories and coerces them to mean something that they don’t, something much nicer and easier to swallow.  It is like the myth concerning Jesus’ statement about camels and the “Eye of a Needle”.  As the myth goes, the Needle’s Eye was supposedly a very narrow gate into Jerusalem, quite the squeeze for a merchant to bring his camels through.  Jesus didn’t really mean that it was easier for literal camel to go through the literal eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.  That couldn’t possibly be the case because I myself want to be rich.  So rather than taking Jesus seriously, rather than coming to terms with the fact material wealth often has spiritual consequences very few of us are born to handle, we believe something easy, something convenient, and something entirely made up.  In the same way we have taken this Zaccheus story and made it more palatable to our own tastes.  

No, Zaccheus in the ancient world is hardly someone to aspire to.  As a tax collector, indeed as the chief tax collector he would be largely uncaring of the poor.  The poor would have been how he made his money, for the poor would be least able to fight him.  Likewise, Zaccheus does not offer to pay back those he robbed fourfold to show that his conscience is somehow clean but rather because he really did rob people.  That Jesus lumps him in with the lost in need of saving shows Zaccheus is not misunderstood by his fellow Jews.   Zaccheus is not the example, ladies and gentlemen, he’s the challenge.  Like Mr. Huph from the Incredibles, Zaccheus is the person who has literally been robbing and cheating others his entire career, becoming very wealthy and powerful off of their suffering.  In the first century, make no mistake, people went hungry and may have even died because of people like him.  He is the villain, and like Mr. Gilbert Huph, he is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with the system.  He is not the man looking to finally show people what a good person he is, Zaccheus is the black sheep of the Hebrew family.  He’s the guy who takes advantage of people, never gives back, and then because of this one act wants to be forgiven for a lifetime of misdeeds … and Jesus gives it to him.  Do you get it?

Living in 21st century America we often forget that these Bible stories are preserved for us, not written to us.  There’s a difference.  Luke, you see, didn’t know one drop of English, and neither could Matthew  Mark or John have told you remotely what an American even was, let alone where to find one.  Our Scriptures speak to us, that is part of their miracle, but we can’t confuse that with the fact that these stories weren’t told to us.  They were told to audiences with vastly different cultures and vastly different worldviews.  Luke was written to a first century Roman audience and to a first century Roman audience Zaccheus is literally the most ridiculous character they could possible imagine, and Luke just reported that they have to be in fellowship with him.  Jesus was accepting him into the fold, it’s a done deal.  To a Roman Gentile they would say to have the same faith as a Jew was crazy enough, but now they not only have to be in fellowship with the Jews but specifically this Jew.  They have to worship with Gilbert Huph, this little rat running a protection racket in Hill-Billy Judea because NOW he wants to be accepted, NOW he suddenly wants to be part of the community?  And Jesus says, “Yeah, Gilbert Huph, too.”

Ecclesia Semper Reformanda, my friends, Ecclesia Semper Reformanda.  The Church must always be reformed.  Reformation is not something “they” out there do.  It is not done by strangers, it is done by “us” and this lesson lies at its very core.  The heart of all reform asks this basic question of human compassion, “Who are we excluding?”  I won’t lie to you, ladies and gentlemen, Christianity reforms itself about every 500 years, and as a Church we are showing every sign of it.  Mistrust in the Church’s institutions, irrelevance of theology, belief, and worship in the surrounding culture - all of that was there in Luther’s time as it was several times before and is again now.  And I will warn you, how believers look in every era is very different.  Just as Roman Catholics believed the end was coming with Protestantism, just as Christians before Nicaea were deeply disturbed about Roman involvement both during and after Nicaea, in each era of the church there is this question, “How can THIS PERSON be in the same worship service … as me?”  And so, I would not be taking my duties as your pastor seriously if I didn’t warn you that the people that come through those doors in the coming decades may not be who we imagine, indeed they might not even be to our liking. 

And so, this 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, as a Protestant myself who believes in the unburdened Word, I have to ask you, who is your Zaccheus?  Who is the literally most ridiculous person you could imagine sitting in the pew next to you?  I mean, I could go on up here, hitting every point the televangelists cover, but the fact is I love you too much to do that.  We could go on about the need to forgive people with criminal records or other “sinners”, in whatever easy way we wish to define that term, but truth be told I don’t think that’s our problem as Middle Class Protestants.  So, I’ll ask again, who is your Zaccheus?  Is he Saudi Arabian?  An Iraqi?  Is he flamboyantly gay?  Maybe she wears spiked leather and black lipstick, maybe she swears a lot and is disrespectful, maybe she is really a he. 

Every congregation says it is welcoming, and every congregation believes themselves when they say that Christ died for all, but no congregation really ask themselves this question.  Ladies and gentlemen, we can’t be an accepting church unless we’ve identified who our Zaccheus are.  The fact is we can say we are a loving and welcoming church until we are blue in the face, but unless we challenge ourselves and really take a hard look at what we believe a believer looks like, if we don’t work to undo our preconceived notions we will shoot ourselves in the foot every single time.

But here is the good news.  We don’t have to be ready for whomever God throws at us, be it within these four walls or out there in the world.   We don’t have to have plans for every single contingency, nor do we have to spend hour upon hour trying to be prepared.  God does not require us to be ready, for that is impossible, we just have to be willing. 

Amen and Amen.