No Middle Class in the Kingdom of God!

A Sermon for the 15^th Sunday after Pentecost (RCL B) 9-9-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:            James 2:1-17; Psalm 125; Mark 7:24-37

Themes:        the poor and the rich, God’s family, God's vision for a new society

Title:              No Middle Class in the Kingdom of God

O Lord, make us masters of ourselves that we might become the servants of others.

Take our minds and think through them; take our lips and speak through them; take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

My brothers and sisters: last week, we were introduced to this Letter of James, and we heard about how James is pre-eminently practical. This brief Letter is jammed full of calls and exhortations and encouragements for the Christian community to act in ways that are consistent with the ways of God.

Here today we see one of the primary concerns and themes of James:

God’s vision for a new society which is marked by generous sharing and by mutual love.  

James presents a scenario where a rich person and a poor person both walk into the gathered Christian community and are treated differently simply as a result of the appearance of wealth, or the lack thereof.

“My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” (James 2:1).

That’s a fair question, and one which we need to face as well.

How do our actions match up with the teaching and the example of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, who demonstrated God’s clear preference to care for the poor?

During this presidential election season, especially during these last few weeks of the party conventions, we have been hearing a lot lately about the middle class.

Everyone seems to be thinking and speaking a lot about the middle class in America.

And in the political realm, I suppose that makes good, practical sense.

But not in the church! Not here among the people of God.

Did our glorious Lord Jesus Christ say, “Blessed are you who are middle class, for you will retire in comfort”? (That's a joke, BTW). No, he said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20).

In that famous parable of the sheep and the goats, did Jesus say, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was middle class, and you helped me get a loan for college; for I was middle class, and you supported my small business; for I was middle class, and you extended my prescription drug benefit”?

Is that how it goes? I don’t think so.

Now, someone might argue and say, “Well, of course, the Bible does not speak of the middle class, because there was no middle class at that time!”

And that is true enough. At that time, there was only the rich and the poor. No middle class. But this does nothing to lessen the overwhelming preference of God clearly expressed in scripture.

My friends, there are more than 500 verses which call us, as the people of God, to imitate God by caring for the poor. There is no way to avoid this reality, if we are going to take the Bible seriously.

So let us be clear and let us understand this well: God is on the side of the poor!

Whose side are we on?

Listen: I know that it is easy to get settled in life, to become comfortable with your circle of family and friends, your pattern of life, and then not to be concerned about those who are forced to live without the bare essentials every single day, not to think about the more than 1000 children under the age of 5 who will die during this hour of worship from preventable diseases and malnutrition.

We become numb to this reality, I think, by the normal routines of our life. 

I get it. I understand it.

But this is one of the crucial reasons why we must read and study the Bible every single day: to break through the settled patterns of our life, to allow God’s vision, God’s desires, God’s will to shake us up, to disturb our lives, to interrupt them, to change them.

This is the strategy for softening and changing the human heart.

This is the way to let the things that break the heart of God break your own heart as well.

And do you know what it is that breaks the heart of God?

The people walking by on the street right now who have no hope for the future, who find their only rest in drugs or alcohol or the pursuit of money. The families that are torn apart by poverty and drugs, so that children grow up without parents to love them. The people who go through this life with no one to visit them, no friends to care for them.

If you can leave this place this morning and drive home and not care about the children of Camden just a few miles away who are being forced to live in a dangerous, violent place with no police to keep the peace – if you can ignore this, and then go home and plop down in front of your big screen HD TV – then, my friends, you have missed the boat. You are not walking with the Lord.

Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that you will leave this place and go solve the problem of Camden. It’s a huge problem. There is no easy solution; there is no quick way to fix Camden.

But if you don’t feel it, if you don’t care, if you don’t notice because you are too absorbed in your own little problems, than your heart is not beating with the heartbeat of God.

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say that you have faith but do not have works?” (James 2:14).

My prayer for you is that you will allow God to mold and shape your inner being until you share God’s vision, God’s desires, God’s will for this world.

If you will allow that to happen, then you will act to care for those in need. You will find a way to help the children of Camden. You will reach out in concern for those in this town who are lost and without hope.  

You won’t be able to stop it, because this is the heartbeat of God which compels us to action.

But let’s not forget that this is, after all, a community letter. James speaks of what happens when certain people enter into the “assembly”. The Greek word is synagogue, and this is another reminder that the Letter is written to Jewish followers of Jesus who gather together for worship and fellowship.

Listen to what John Chrysostom, the great Bishop of Constantinople in the fourth century, spoke about the symbolism of the Eucharist in our assemblies:

“Bread and wine represent the fruits of our labor, whereby we turn the things of nature into food and drink for our sustenance. So at the Lord’s Table, we offer our labor to God, dedicating ourselves anew to his service.”

(Now here is the key part!) “Then the bread and wine are distributed equally to every member of the congregation; the poor receive the same amount as the rich. This means that God’s material blessings belong equally to everyone, to be enjoyed according to each person’s need” (On Living Simply: The Golden Voice of John Chrysostom, Robert Van de Weyer, p. 56).

Do you see it, my friends? What happens here at this sacred table is a symbol, an acting out of God’s hope for the world. Everyone shares, and everyone gets enough! 

This is how it’s meant to be! And as crazy as this might sound to you right now, this is why I believe that the local church is the hope of the world.

I believe this with every fiber of my being! The local church is the hope of the world – WHEN we act in accordance with the teachings of Christ!

Consider it: what happens when someone who is obviously off of the street walks into our assembly? How do we respond? Do you honor and respect that person as if they are the very presence of Jesus in our midst? Do we treat that person with the same honor and care which we give to the blessed sacrament?

Well, that is what Jesus said, isn’t it? In Matthew 25, he said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25:35).

I’m not making this up! This is the standard for judgment in the Bible.

We can gather here every Sunday and say the Nicene Creed until we’re blue in the face. 

But if we cannot welcome the stranger who walks into our assembly, if we cannot care for the needs of the poor, then is our faith really alive? 

So let the politicians worry about the middle class.

But let the church worry about the poor. And let us welcome the stranger and be about the works of God. And let us live and worship and learn together as a living sign, as a sacrament of the kingdom of God where all share equally in the mercy of God. Amen.

Who is your King?

A Sermon for the 2^nd Sunday after Pentecost (RCL B) 6-10-2012

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts:                          1 Samuel 8:4-20, 11:14-15; Psalm 138; Mark 3:20-35

Themes:                     craving for a king, the family of Jesus

Title:                           Who is Your King?

Today, my friends, as we begin “Ordinary Time” here in the Church, we enter into the stories of the Kings of Israel – the classic period of the Israelite monarchy. Samuel, Saul, David, Solomon – this on-going drama will carry us right through the summer.

So today, we begin this series by considering the underlying desire of the Israelites for a King and the contrasting desire of God to be their only King! There is a deep conflict here that is important to the rest of the biblical story and to the Gospel.  

And this morning, what I want you to consider is this question: Who is your King? Who is your King?

This entire drama about the kings is, of course, a story about power and trust and hope.

It’s also about politics, of course, and that is a dangerous topic to bring up in polite society, I know!

But we must. In the church, we must deal with reality as it is.

And this is the real problem with politics is this: people place their hope and their trust in the exercise of power.

Power is so alluring, so tempting. It promises so much, but nearly always delivers so little.

People tend to think that if they can only change WHO happens to be the leader, then everything will get better.

Isn’t this why so many people will invest weeks and months and years of their lives, not even to mention their money, in order to get THEIR candidate elected?

I haven’t seen too many political ads here in New Jersey yet, but I’m sure the flood is coming soon.

And I say that it’s sad: sad that so many people get caught in the same alluring trap of power.

They say “if only MY leader will win, then everything will get better!”

You would think that humanity now would know better. There are thousands of years of evidence now which clearly show that this is false! Each new political leader can make some positive changes and each will also make some negative changes.  

Perhaps each new generation of human beings needs to learn this lesson for themselves.

Just look at the movement of younger people who were SO excited about the Obama administration, some with hopes and dreams which seemed almost to be messianic!

Change is coming! Everything will be different now that OUR guy is in the White House!

And look at how disillusioned most of these young supporters are now.

Elect this person or that one; recall this person or that one. It makes so little difference in the long run.

Now, don’t misunderstand me. The Church must be involved in politics on some level.

We have a clear calling to advocate for a just society which functions honestly and treats all citizens with equality and which cares for those who have no other means of support, which protects the weak and the powerless.

No, it is not politics which the Church opposes, but rather politicians! 

Because we know better, right?!

We know that every person is a sinner, even the glamorous celebrity politician who is so smooth and polished. We know that they are all sinners, and we know that power and sin mix together to create a very nasty concoction.

We can spot a bit of this ancient naiveté among the Israelites here in the books of Samuel.

The people are longing for a king, because they are convinced that their lives will be so much better if they can only get a good man to be their king!

For hundreds of years now, they had been ruled by judges. Some of these judges had been strong and had been able to keep their enemies, the Philistines, at bay. Other were not, and some were corrupt and ruled with capricious force.

But if they could only replace their judges with a king, just like all of the other nations, well then this would solve their problems, right? This king would be stronger and able to fight against the Philistines and to protect the people from their enemies.

But wise, old Samuel knew better. And he tried to warn the people, and he said: Yes, in some ways a king will make your lives better, but in other ways a king will make your lives worse! Because once a man is given this kind of royal power, then he will take and take and take what is yours and enjoy it for himself.

The people would not listen. And it grieved the heart of God.

What did the Lord say to Samuel? “They have not rejected you [Samuel], but they have rejected me from being King over them.”

Often, in our Lectionary readings, there is very little, if any, connection between the different readings, but today there is a good, strong connection. Or rather, there is a striking contrast!

Samuel warns the people in advance about the behavior of their coming King: he will take from them in order to enrich his house and his family at their expense!

Now, we know that the kings of Israel serve in one sense as prophetic signs which point toward the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the coming Messiah, the anointed One.

Well, here in the Gospel of Mark we find the true and rightful King operating within his Kingdom.

And how does he exercise his power?

Because it may be so familiar, we tend to forget how radical and revolutionary his teaching truly is!

The Lord Jesus is ministering within the realm of the Roman Empire, under the authority of the Emperor and under the direct authority of Herod Antipas who claims to be the King of Galilee.

Jesus comes as the rightful King, and he looks around at the ragtag band of people who have gathered around him and he says, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother!”

He says, in effect: Forget about Caesar, forget about the Emperor, forget about King Herod, forget about all of the people sitting on thrones, wielding worldly power.

Forget about them, because these people here are the truly important ones!

Whoever does the will of God is important to the true King, not those who can get things done within the realm of politics!

No wonder his family and others thought that he was crazy!

But he was simply restoring that original divine intention for the people of God place their hopes and the trust in God alone, who was to be their only true King.

And so it comes back to us who are citizens of this kingdom of the Messiah.

Who is your King? Where do you place your trust? Where do you find your hope?

It is my prayer that tomorrow morning, and every morning of your life, you can begin your day by saying to the Lord these words, by saying them with trust and confidence and hope.

Say: “Lord, you are my King.” Go ahead. Try it out now. Ready? Let's say it together: "Lord, You are my King."

Good! Learn to say it! 

Lord, you are my Prophet. Lord, you are my Judge. Lord, you are my Commander-in-Chief.

If you will but let God be the one who governs and guides your life, if you will but place your trust in God alone, if you will find your hope for the future in God alone, then you will live above the fray, above the changing tides of power in this world. Then you will not be disappointed by the failures of human leaders, which are bound to happen.

Because if you can live with this awareness, if you allow God to be your King, then you are in fact doing the will of God and living as members of the family of Jesus. Amen.