"Against Stewardship Sunday, or, On Not E-Trading the Gospel"
Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
Denver, Colorado
13 November 2011
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Texts: Zephaniah 1.7, 12-18
Psalm 90
1 Thessalonians 5.1-11
Matthew 25.14-30"Everything else seems beyond us,
we aren’t ready for it, nothing that was said
is true for us, caught naked in the argument,
the counterpoint, trying to sightread
what our fingers can’t keep up with, learn by heart
what we can’t even read. And yet
it is this we were born to. We aren’t virtuosi
or child prodigies, there are no prodigies
in this realm, only a half-blind, stubborn
cleaving to the timbre, the tones of what we are,
even when all the texts describe it differently.
And we’re not performers, like Liszt, competing
against the world for speed and brilliance
(the 79-year-old pianist said, when I asked her
What makes a virtuoso?—Competitiveness.)
The longer I live the more I mistrust
theatricality, the false glamour cast
by performance, the more I know its poverty beside
the truths we are salvaging from
the splitting-open of our lives."
-from "Transcendental Etude" by Adrienne Rich
-If you’re like me, then you’re really thankful that today is
not Stewardship Sunday! While filling out my six-month Vicar evaluation, when I came to the section to discuss "stewardship," it was with great glee that I wrote: "House does not have a stewardship campaign or committee."
-For those of you who grew up without this lovely slice of Christian Americana, Stewardship Sunday is the day when they read a parable like today’s, the “parable of the talents.” The talents of course are not, as in the Greek, gigantic sums of money that would boggle the minds of the original audience. No, on Stewardship Sunday, they would, of course, be the “talents” and gifts that you possess: time, skills, and of course, cash. And if you want to be a good little churchmouse, then you’ll pay attention to the first two slaves in the story, who took their talents and invested them. And gave them back. With interest.
-And you would, of course, not want to be like
third slave, who just buried his gift in the ground – “hid his light under a bushel, no!” – and did nothing with them. You’re supposed to give your “talents” because you’re
supposed to just be "so thankful that Jesus has given so much to you.” And so you cannot help but want to give back. And there’s some good truth in that. Yet, tacitly, the message is also that if you don’t give, you’re somehow ungrateful. Or lazy. Or certainly, “not really a good committed church member.”
-Now I’ll reckon that if you’re here at House, you’re probably not too concerned about being “good church member.” So maybe you’ll share my indignation when I say how manipulative of a reading of this parable I find Stewardship Sunday to be. See, this kind of stewardship reading, it doesn’t make me want to go out and give abundantly, just because everyone else, is making like the first two slaves. This reading makes me feel like that third slave in the story. Cautious. Guilt-ridden. Used. Suspicious. Definitely afraid.
-See as someone who struggles with fear, who often wants to bury my gifts in the ground, what troubles be about this parable is not stewardship per se. Rather, I wonder: why
does that third slave feel so afraid? He tells the Master when he returns, “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow…and so I was afraid.” Afraid. It’s not that he’s lazy. Not that he doesn’t care about his gift, or his community, or even his Master. I mean, he kept the money safe! He gives exactly what he was given right back to the Master! No, it says the guy’s afraid. Which makes me wonder: where does that fear come from?
-I wonder if his fear - as well as his suspicion - has to do with those first two slaves. The ones making a killing sitting in front of their laptops buying Apple stock and e-trading biotech mutual funds. I wonder if he saw them sitting atop their swelling piles of talents. Began comparing them to his single, meager talent. Saw the Master reward them for making him rich off their accumulated interest – a practice, by the way, thoroughly forbidden for the Jews in Jesus’ audience. I wonder if the slave arrived at this pyramid-scheming Bernie Madoff of a god, because, comparing himself to his fellow slaves, rather than trusting his instincts and sticking to his guns, instead found himself enthralled, and further enslaved, to the corruptions of his culture.
-In my experience, I’m often afraid – and also get most of my distorted pictures of God – because I’m comparing my self and my failures with the successes and imagined perfections of the people around me. I’ll see people who are really “living the Christian life.” Who are really prosperous, or happy. Who receive recognition and respect. Who are really radical, or progressive, or intelligent, or holy, or even rebellious. And I idealize them. It seems like they’ve been given five talents – five times as many as me – and that they’re getting back even more! They lead lives that make mine look paltry and embarrassing by comparison. They seem like they are living an abundant life. And mine, certainly, is not. Or, at least, I think it’s not.
-And then, on top of all that, I start to think about God. Maybe God is the type of God that wants me to be like them. And not like me. Wants me to be really invested, really busy, really successful, really active or activist, wants me to keep adding more commitments to my schedule. Or belong to a certain political party. Or sub-culture or counter-culture. Or maybe its about being progressive enough. Or accepting enough. Or even, to do something I know with all my heart is wrong.
-Pick your poison. But then, the rub: I start to think that maybe these are things God is
expecting, even
requiring me to do, if She is going to accept me. If God is going to view my life as a worthwhile investment, worth the time She took in creating me. My picture of God becomes distorted. Because I let the people around me, or the culture of comparison and propserity, or the fear in my own head, tell me who God is. And who I am in God. Equating “how much I do” with the “who I am” in the eyes of the Master. And so, like that slave, I too want to say, “yes, that God is shrewd and ruthless Master.”
-See, when I hear this parable of the fearful slave, I don’t see a vision of God’s dreams for his people. I see, rather, a reflection of the nightmare that results when we get lulled to sleep by the empty promises of a fallen world. The paralysis that results from comparison and competition. The hell of believing that God is not for us, but against us. And that's when I begin to get afraid.
-But see, this is where I think St. Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians we read today comes in handy. Because Paul urges us to “keep awake! Keep awake and remain sober!” And I think this is less advice on how to avoid having a hangover in church Sunday morning – or evening, as may be the case - and more an urging to resist becoming intoxicated by the deceptions of the world. And, by the problematic comparisons by which we read the others and ourselves. Advice, about not conforming ourselves to what people tell us we should be doing, or what they think God should look like based on their own successes or addictions. About how to see clearly in the rays of a different light.
-Maybe we need to stay awake, so we can recognize the true God, when that God comes to finds us. Because did you catch what Paul says next? “God has destined us not for wrath, but for obtaining salvation in Christ Jesus.” Paul doesn’t say keep awake so you can “look at what I Paul am doing.” (At least not here!) He doesn’t say, keep awake and follow the Protestant Work Ethic. He says, “keep awake, and look at JESUS CHRIST.” And then, “encourage and build up one another.” Jesus is where we look the see the face of the invisible God. Jesus is where we look to see God’s will for our life. Because any other God, except this God, is terrifying. Will lead us to start erecting these ladders of success and these rat-races of achievement. Will lead us into competition and prosperity thinking. Rather than mutual encouragement. Collaboration. New creation. Freedom.
-And, what’s more, as we compare ourselves, not to the world's corruptions, but to the cross-torn face of the Incarnation of Love and Grace itself, we see something else too. We see our own faces looking back. Not condemned. But transfigured, with an eternal beauty and splendor. Our beauty, the beauty which God sees in us, is such a magnificence, such a marvelous light, that it is
God, and not us, who is willing to invest all of God’s talents and efforts, to make us God’s own. Christ buried the talent of his own life in the ground, that all his riches might be taken and given to us, we who are most invested in the five-talent world of the other slaves. That we who are enslaved to the ugliness of sin, might be made beautiful, free, abundantly alive. In the words of St. Iranaeus, “God became as we are, that we might become as God is.”
-By unmasking the truth about the world’s lies, the parable reveals all golden ages as gilded cages, all ideals as idols. But the parable is also a gift in that it prepares us to hear the liberating news of the Gospel. That God is for us. That God’s economy is an economy of mercy and freedom. That it’s really less about
our stewardship, and more about
God’s stewardship of US.
-The Good News, that when we gaze into the bloody, sunken eyes of the Crucified One, we discover we are not only precious in God’s sight, but that God does not play dice with the good gifts he has given the world through us. God does not ask us to speculate or eTrade with the gift of our lives. God gives freely – gives
us freely! - that we might also give freely to all. Invites to take up the gift that we are, to take up the very image and beauty of God that has been fashioned in us, and to boldly, creatively, fearlessly let the light of that splendor shine before the world. Not for the sake of gaining more talents or rewards. But for the sake of our brothers and sisters, and for the witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
-Because God did not create crap. Because God does not place a price tag on Her children. Because God thinks we are far too good of gifts not to share us freely with others.
-Amen.
"Happy New Church Year - We're All Dead"
-And then, our Gospel. Christ promises that one day, He will return to set all things right. But does he have to do it so…apocalyptically? A darkened sun and stars. Judgement and destruction. Language that seems to vaguely allude to some sort of rapture. Oh, and of course, NO ONE – not even Jesus – knows WHEN this will happen. So while Jesus did do the whole “coming-and-dying-for-our-sins-and- then-resurrecting-thing,” it’s hard not feel a little…stood up. Left alone with only another article in the Apostles’ Creed to show for it. If I said, "honey, I'll do the dishes but not even I know the day or hour," I have the feeling it just wouldn't fly. 
-Because our world indeed feels shrouded in deep darkness. We sin, we fail, we hurt ourselves and others as easily and as frequently as we draw breath. We see loved ones claimed by cancer, crippled by car crashes, stricken by strokes, withered away by age and dementia. We raise children the best we can, trusting in God’s claim on their lives, only to see them counting down the days until Confirmation is over so they can get the hell out of church. We continue to show up in the pews and in the pulpit, hoping God will show His face. Even though, deep in our hearts, we feel only emptiness, weariness. And disappointment. 
-Or maybe we get political, and find something to occupy. Or someone who promises a better hope, a change we can not only believe in, but touch and see. Or maybe, we simply shut down. Withdraw. Pretend nothing is wrong. We stop caring, because we no longer have the energy to sustain our hope. Or, to fuel our outrage. We abandon the promises for proxies; the protest psalms for Playstation. 
-No, the God in whose name we baptize is the God of Jesus Christ. The Crucified God. The God who does not flee from death. Does not flinch in the face of our sin. Does not rush towards a quick fix. This is the God who became Incarnate not in a palace, but in a stable on a pile of dung. This is the God of the original Black Friday, the God who suffers and dies, the God nailed to the cross. The God who descends into hell. The God who fulfills God’s promises, not in some far-off utopian future, but constantly, here and now, in our midst. And especially, in the midst of our failures. Our sins. In the midst of our doubt, our dirtiness, our desperation, our darkness, our death, and our despair.
"Coming Out, or, A Rhapsodaisical Break-Up Allegory"
A Collect for Christ the King Sunday
Preached at House for All Sinners and Saints
-For those of you who grew up without this lovely slice of Christian Americana, Stewardship Sunday is the day when they read a parable like today’s, the “parable of the talents.” The talents of course are not, as in the Greek, gigantic sums of money that would boggle the minds of the original audience. No, on Stewardship Sunday, they would, of course, be the “talents” and gifts that you possess: time, skills, and of course, cash. And if you want to be a good little churchmouse, then you’ll pay attention to the first two slaves in the story, who took their talents and invested them. And gave them back. With interest. 
-Now I’ll reckon that if you’re here at House, you’re probably not too concerned about being “good church member.” So maybe you’ll share my indignation when I say how manipulative of a reading of this parable I find Stewardship Sunday to be. See, this kind of stewardship reading, it doesn’t make me want to go out and give abundantly, just because everyone else, is making like the first two slaves. This reading makes me feel like that third slave in the story. Cautious. Guilt-ridden. Used. Suspicious. Definitely afraid. 
-I wonder if his fear - as well as his suspicion - has to do with those first two slaves. The ones making a killing sitting in front of their laptops buying Apple stock and e-trading biotech mutual funds. I wonder if he saw them sitting atop their swelling piles of talents. Began comparing them to his single, meager talent. Saw the Master reward them for making him rich off their accumulated interest – a practice, by the way, thoroughly forbidden for the Jews in Jesus’ audience. I wonder if the slave arrived at this pyramid-scheming Bernie Madoff of a god, because, comparing himself to his fellow slaves, rather than trusting his instincts and sticking to his guns, instead found himself enthralled, and further enslaved, to the corruptions of his culture. 
-Pick your poison. But then, the rub: I start to think that maybe these are things God is expecting, even requiring me to do, if She is going to accept me. If God is going to view my life as a worthwhile investment, worth the time She took in creating me. My picture of God becomes distorted. Because I let the people around me, or the culture of comparison and propserity, or the fear in my own head, tell me who God is. And who I am in God. Equating “how much I do” with the “who I am” in the eyes of the Master. And so, like that slave, I too want to say, “yes, that God is shrewd and ruthless Master.” 
-Maybe we need to stay awake, so we can recognize the true God, when that God comes to finds us. Because did you catch what Paul says next? “God has destined us not for wrath, but for obtaining salvation in Christ Jesus.” Paul doesn’t say keep awake so you can “look at what I Paul am doing.” (At least not here!) He doesn’t say, keep awake and follow the Protestant Work Ethic. He says, “keep awake, and look at JESUS CHRIST.” And then, “encourage and build up one another.” Jesus is where we look the see the face of the invisible God. Jesus is where we look to see God’s will for our life. Because any other God, except this God, is terrifying. Will lead us to start erecting these ladders of success and these rat-races of achievement. Will lead us into competition and prosperity thinking. Rather than mutual encouragement. Collaboration. New creation. Freedom. 
-And, what’s more, as we compare ourselves, not to the world's corruptions, but to the cross-torn face of the Incarnation of Love and Grace itself, we see something else too. We see our own faces looking back. Not condemned. But transfigured, with an eternal beauty and splendor. Our beauty, the beauty which God sees in us, is such a magnificence, such a marvelous light, that it is God, and not us, who is willing to invest all of God’s talents and efforts, to make us God’s own. Christ buried the talent of his own life in the ground, that all his riches might be taken and given to us, we who are most invested in the five-talent world of the other slaves. That we who are enslaved to the ugliness of sin, might be made beautiful, free, abundantly alive. In the words of St. Iranaeus, “God became as we are, that we might become as God is.” 
-The Good News, that when we gaze into the bloody, sunken eyes of the Crucified One, we discover we are not only precious in God’s sight, but that God does not play dice with the good gifts he has given the world through us. God does not ask us to speculate or eTrade with the gift of our lives. God gives freely – gives us freely! - that we might also give freely to all. Invites to take up the gift that we are, to take up the very image and beauty of God that has been fashioned in us, and to boldly, creatively, fearlessly let the light of that splendor shine before the world. Not for the sake of gaining more talents or rewards. But for the sake of our brothers and sisters, and for the witness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
A Collect for Reformation Sunday
-Earlier this week, the Pastrix and I talked about “collaring up” and heading down to Civic Center Park to interact with the Occupy Denver protestors. For me, I hoped it would be good sermon research. How could we read such a politically charged story, in which Christ, occupying the Jerusalem Temple, tells us to “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s,” without attending to the outrage stirring in our own time?
-I wonder if such an unmasking is also what Jesus is really up to in his rebuttal of the Pharisees’ attempts to “entrap him in his words.” OK, actually, it’s the Pharisees’ disciples, their seminarians and vicars, who come to Jesus. Because if I’m the Pharisees, I can think of no better way to torture my enemy then to afflict him with the know-it-all questions of my graduate students! No wonder St. Matthew tells us that Jesus senses their “malice!”
-That’s why I feel that Jesus’ rebuke is actually a gift to these young, impressionable seminary students – and to all of us who seek to be His disciples. See, Jesus is unafraid to be unimpressed by their flattery. And, he is unafraid to speak the truth, harshly, in order to break the cycle of competition, fear, malice and manipulation that has been passed down from generation to generation. Such interventions can be nothing less than a Gift of healing from God, unmasking and exorcising the demonic systems that demonize us, and lead us to demonize others. 
-New Creation is a truly radical revolution, getting to the very roots of who God is, and so who we are. A revolution, in which we are invited to lay down our arms, take off our riot gear, and set aside our fear. A revolution, taking up the currency of freedom given by the One who came as the servant to all, that all may be free to serve one another in true peace, under the true God whose justice is grace, and whose authority is love. It is a revolution, in which God cares far less about giving us some new political program, and more about making us into a new kind of people. A revolution, capable of creating a new politics. A revolution Dorothy Day called “a revolution of the heart.” 
-I was one of the first to finish the labyrinth, and as I walked up the hill back towards camp, I turned around and was struck by what I saw below. The circular shape of the labyrinth resembled to me, in light of our Gospel, a kind of coin. And on that coin was not the image of Caesar, seeking to solidify his own security through inciting fear, competition and manipulation. Instead, I saw thirty fellow pilgrims, at various points on their own spiritual journeys, their pathways weaving in and out of one another’s. Like a kind of dance, or a magnificent, musical fugue. As paths crossed, I was struck by how often each party would move to the side for each other. There was no competition. Only mutual respect and service, cooperation and community, room for all, unified together in our beautiful diversity. 
-“I just knew you were a gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love!” So spaketh Jonah in a scene that easily wins him the Emmy for best biblical episode featuring a drama queen. The knowledge of God’s goodness is, apparently, so horrible to this prophet-turned-whale-appetizer-turned-shrub-keeper that he proclaims he is so angry with God that he wishes he were DEAD! I mean, what did Jonah want the Ninevites to say? “Um, wow, a loving and gracious God! That sounds great, but, well, you know, we’ll take destruction instead. Thanks though.” I mean, they even put sackcloth on their sheep! Of course, Jonah’s too busy to notice, crying about his dead shrubbery. 
-Because let’s be honest. God’s grace really can piss us off sometimes. Especially when it starts to meddle in our own notions of fairness. Recently, a slew of books have tried to make the argument that there is no such thing as hell. Or, if there is, that it is empty. After all, a gracious God simply could not possibly stand to torture Her beloved creations for eternity, right? And you’d think such an idea – which is actually as old as the Bible itself – would be welcome to all of us who are clearly in need of that gracious God, and not the angry one. Right? And yet, no idea since evolution has caused such a stir in the Christian community. Because as loving as we like to think we are, surely, there has to be more “justice,” more “fairness,” than that. Surely, Hitler shouldn’t get to have the same eternal accommodations as the Jews he gassed. The rapist should not get to dine at the heavenly banquet with the child whose innocence he stole. 
-But what I think really jilts Jonah is having to face the fact that, despite our best efforts to be more unfair than God, God simply won’t let us be better at something than God is! Like the writer of Jonah, God is also in the business of satire and folly, and God is an expert at turning tables. It happened at Ninevah, where God used the conversion of the most debauched city in the ancient world to show the supposedly-righteous Jonah he had a lot to learn. It happened in today’s parable, when the life-time employees of God’s kingdom micro-brewery come to collect their pay stubs only to learn they have made the exact same as the Gentile day laborers who have only just crossed the border into the promised land of grace. It happened on the cross, where God Incarnate exposed the unfairness of human fairness and justice, removed the veil from human piety and human holiness, and clothed God’s-self in the folly of humanity, confounding all systems of human entitlement and control. Like Jonah, we are forced to confront the uncomfortable reality that, yes, the God who created the universe is in fact “a loving and gracious God.” And the God of Jesus Christ is far more unfair than we could ever hope to be! 
-And, as if to make sure that we know just how unfair God’s grace can be, God seems to love using the very late-comers, the very newcomers we resent, to woo us back into God’s feast of fools. See, I feel that God brings along, even converts people, for our good, not just theirs. We need to receive the gift of the enthusiasm and the wonder that newcomers bring. Because I wonder if every good thing left to the hands of workers who have been at it for a long time, might eventually fall into mediocrity and neglect. 
-That’s why I think God cares so much about wooing us jilted ones back into the vineyard, no matter how unfair Her ways may seem. Because it’s a good, a wonderful, a joyful thing to work in God’s vineyard. To work together, enthusiastic newcomer and seasoned old-timers, in cultivating the grapes that will eventually be served as the wine of the new creation at the end of all things. Like the New Belgium brewery whose slogan is “follow your folly,” God invites us to follow God’s folly, God’s foolishly gracious unfairness, so that when time comes for the party, there will be plenty of delight to go around, and plenty of forgiven enemies on the dance floor. Not staring at our feet, bitter at all of the unexpected bandwagoners ruining our scene. But full of the joy of the knowledge that indeed, God gives up on no person, does not cease to pursue us until all of us – Jonah, Israel, the Church, you, and me – let go of what is fair, and embrace what is true, good, and beautiful. Because this is a comedy, and the ending is just too good for God to allow it to be missed. 
