Leave your gift there and go!

A Sermon for the 6th Sunday after the Epiphany (RCL A) 2-13-2011
Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Deuter. 30:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37

Title: Leave your gift there and go!

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the one who redeemed the world by his incarnation and self-offering on the cross, and who redeemed us and made us his holy people through his own blood. This Lord Jesus, our Teacher, the one who guides all people in finding the good life, this Lord Jesus loves confrontation.

Yes! You heard me right. Jesus loves confrontation!

Ah, you may be asking, but what does the word confrontation actually mean? Do we have any Latin scholars with us here today? Confront comes from the Latin words “com” and “frontem”. It means foreheads together, in the original Latin. The basic idea of confronting someone is to address them face-to-face, forehead-to-forehead. Head on, direct, clear, unambiguous.

And so I say it again: Jesus loves confrontation, because he loves it when people take the initiative to engage in face-to-face, direct, clear, unambiguous communication.

The Lord understands that conflict and tension are normal and regular parts of life. And the Lord understands that conflict avoidance is a pattern of behavior that leads to more suffering, more bitterness, more violence.

If you look in a medical dictionary, you will see a definition of confrontation which is something like this:

“a therapeutic technique constituting the act of facing or being made to face one's own attitudes and shortcomings, the way one is perceived, and the consequences of one's behavior, or of causing another to face these things.”

Being made to face one’s own attitudes and shortcomings. This, I believe, is what Jesus has in mind for us.

Listen again to these words from his best remembered teaching session, his seminar on the hillside, as we might call it today.

Here in Matthew’s Gospel, he is talking to real-life people about the conflicts that they have in their everyday lives, and he asks his listeners – and us, of course – to look deeper than the surface level. Of course, murder is wrong, but that deadly act is simply the direct product of a heart that is filled with anger and bitterness. So what are we to do? What can we do to move away from the anger that leads to violence? What does he say?

“So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against us, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23).

My friends, stop and consider what kind of action it is that Jesus is calling forth.

Of course, he is speaking of temple ritual, when the Hebrew people entered the temple in Jerusalem to offer gifts to the priests and to make sacrificial offerings to God to redeem their sin.

But think about the implications. He does not call us to seek reconciliation BEFORE we offer our worship to God, and not AFTER. Rather, he calls us to interrupt our worship of God right in the middle! The Lord says that reconciling with another is far more important than completing our ritual act! When you are in the process of worshipping God, if you remember this conflict in your life, then leave and go immediately! Reconcile, and then return and complete your act of worship.

Can you appreciate how radical this is? We tend to prefer orderliness and neat, clearly defined rituals, but how would our worship be different if we here actually and honestly took this teaching to heart?

To be honest, I’m not sure how this would work. But recently, I heard about a congregation out in Minneapolis who sometimes practice a different way to receiving Communion which seeks to respect this teaching from Christ.

In this community, when communion is ready, a number of stations are set up around the meeting space where the bread and wine are available. At each station, there are candles and flowers and an icon. Everyone is asked to examine their hearts for a few minutes in silence. Then, when each is ready, they are invited to go and to commune themselves. Sometimes families go and give communion to one another.

But if anyone in the congregation knows that they are at odds with someone else who is present, that person is asked to take the bread and wine to the one with whom they are in conflict. Take communion to someone else as a way of showing your commitment to reconciliation.

Maybe that person has already received communion? So what? There’s no rule against receiving twice. Maybe it’s embarrassing to be seen as the one who is carrying the bread and chalice to another in the congregation? So what? Humility and vulnerability are essential if we are to grow in God’s grace.

Can you see it? Can you imagine the potential for disorder and confusion which this kind of communion practice might create? But what does Christ consider to be more important: the beauty and orderliness of our ritual practice, or the possibility of reconciling with another?

True reconciliation is what Jesus is after. Now, let’s be clear about the fact that reconciliation is not easy. Sometimes you can work your hardest to reconcile with someone, but they are not open to it. Sometimes they refuse to reciprocate.

We have a neighbor on our street where we live in Moorestown who absolutely hates me. Everyone on the street calls him Uncle David. As far as I can tell, he has no family around, so I have no idea how he came by that unusual designation. He lives all alone just four houses down from us.

One summer night a few years ago, soon after we moved into our house, Erin and I were frantically trying to get the kids to the table to eat dinner together. Do you know how hard it is sometimes to get everyone together at the same time to eat when the food is hot, but the kids are all running around playing with friends? Angus, our son, was down the street at the house next to Uncle David’s. After yelling at him over and over again to come home for dinner, I marched down there in exasperation to drag him home. Erin and the girls were already sitting at the table waiting for us. But just after we turned to come back home, I heard a sharp whistle behind me. I turned around to see Uncle David in his front yard looking at me and going like this (gesturing for me to come over to him!).

So I thought, “What! Are you kidding me? Am I some kind of dog that you whistle for and to whom you bark out your commands? Forget it! We’re going home to eat dinner! If Uncle David has something important to say to me, he knows where I live!” I was thinking all of this while all I did was wave to him and march Angus back home.

Little did I know that I had sealed my fate! My refusal to obey his whistle and finger command was all he needed to write me off forever. He has never forgiven me for that. Uncle David walks his dogs by our house twice a day, but even though we always say “good morning” and “hello” to him, he always ignores us completely. Doesn’t even respond! But once, two years later, he shocked me completely by stopping in front of my house and saying to me, “You didn’t have the time to talk to me, that’s why I hate you!” I was quite flabbergasted and so I responded and said, “OK. Whatever.” Frankly, I don’t really want to be friends with him. I think he might be, like, the next Unibomber, sitting in his house all by himself every night. He’s kinda scary!

But we still say hello to Uncle David every time we see him. We give him invitations to come over to our Kentucky Derby Parties. He never even acknowledges that we exist. I think that we have tried to reconcile with him, but he refuses to even consider it.

One of the elders living out in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd century was asked to define humility and he said this: “if you forgive a brother who has injured you before he himself asks [for] pardon” (The Wisdom of the Desert Fathers, Thomas Merton, p.53).

It’s not easy to reconcile with some people. The Lord knows that. But the point is that we – we who share in the resurrection life of Jesus which is always new, always fresh – we are the ones who are always seeking to reconcile, always making the first move, always taking the initiative to reach out to confront another, not with anger and violence, but rather with genuine concern and with love.

Perhaps someone here will need to leave right now, because you know in your heart that you need to reach out to someone and offer to reconcile with them. Please do it. Listen to the Holy Spirit who speaks in your heart. Don’t worry about what the people around you might think. Wouldn’t all of our lives be so much better if we all instead worried much more about what God thinks? May it be so. Amen.

But the Word of God is not chained!

Sermon for Proper 23 C RCL 3/21/2010, offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Jeremiah 29:1,4-7; Psalm 66:1-12; 2 Timothy 2:8-15; Luke 17:11-19

Help us, O Lord, to become masters of ourselves so that we might become the servants of others. Take our minds and think throw them. Take our lips and speak through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

In our Gospel reading today, the Lord heals ten lepers who beg for his help. Only one returns, the one who is the foreigner. The Samaritan. You and I, who are Gentiles in the flesh – we, of course, represent the Samaritans in this gospel story. And this week, as I read this story, I wondered about how often we take for granted the amazing healing grace which we have received from the Lord. Do we even recognize it and acknowledge it? Or do we continue to go on our way, never ceasing to give our thanks and praise?

Today’s reading from the letter to Timothy speaks of St. Paul being chained in prison for the sake of the Gospel. Then he adds a remarkable little sentence after this. “But the Word of God is not chained.”

But the Word of God is not chained! Of course, the writer of this is not speaking of the Bible as we know it, but rather of “the message”, the euangelion, the proclamation of Jesus as the Master of all. The Greek quite literally says that the logos of God is not bound, restrained or hindered. Jesus is the logos, but he speaks to us today primarily through the words of scripture.

But how often do we stop and recognize this?
Do we Samaritans stop to give thanks to God for this amazing gift of the Bible? To recognize and give thanks for the healing and transforming effects of these sacred texts?

I think that we take them for granted. Oh, yeah, it’s the Bible. We are supposed to read it.

Do we remember and recognize know how many millions of people in the world are craving and praying for the privilege to read the Bible in their own language, in a way that they can understand, and yet they are not able?

The old proverb is that “familiarity breeds contempt” and in this case I believe it is true. We here in the Church – we have heard the Bible so much, and talked about it so much, that it has become almost boring. Most of us can hear it now with such nonchalance that we barely even listen any more.

But the Word of God is not chained. And this message of the Gospel has amazing power to touch people and change them forever.

Let me share with you and amazing story of the effect that the word of God can have on people. Mosab Hassan Yousef is a young man living right now in exile. The reason for this is complicated. You see, he grew up in Ramallah, in Palestine. His father is Sheik Hassan Yousef. This man is the imam, the one spiritual leader behind the founding of Hamas, the Islamic Palestinian terrorist group committed to the destruction of Israel. Mosab grew up then as a prince among his people, the first-born son of a very important and very influential (and dangerous) person.

Growing up in that place, Mosab learned the spiritual practices of Islam. He never missed a time of prayer with his father at the mosque. He loved his father and admired his father’s devotion. But, unfortunately, Mosab also learned there how to hate. And as he grew up, his list of those who were worthy of his hate grew longer and longer. When he was 18, he secretly bought a few guns so that he might attack Israeli settlers and soldiers as part of the first intifada, but he was caught and arrested by the Israelis. While being held in the large prison in the valley of Armageddon for 16 months, he watched with horror as the leaders of Hamas tortured and brutalized one another under suspicion of collaboration with the Israelis.

Mosab’s faith in and commitment to his people began to waver. If they did this to one another in the name of Islam, of what other horrors were they capable? He became confused and began searching for truth. Mosab grew unsure now of who were the bad guys and who were the good guys, who he should hate and who he should trust.

Damascus Gate in Old Jerusalem

Until one day in 1999. By this time, Mosab was free and on this day he was walking with his best friend, Jamal, past the Damascus Gate in Old Jerusalem. A man from the United Kingdom, who spoke Arabic, was there and he invited Mosab to join a group studying the New Testament at the YMCA in West Jerusalem. The invitation came at just the right point in his life, and Mosab accepted. After all, every Muslim considers Jesus to be a great prophet from God, so why not learn about what he actually did and taught?

Mosab was given a New Testament as a gift for him to take home. This was dangerous for Mosab, as conversions are not allowed and any hint of disloyalty to the cause of Hamas could cost him his life. But the giving and receiving of gifts is a vital part of Arab hospitality, and so Mosab accepted this gift and secretly he took it home.

He had no idea of how to read this Arabic New Testament, so he began in the beginning. Mosab read the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew. He found it interesting, but not terribly overwhelming. That is, until he came to the Sermon on the Mount and these specific words, which seemed directly spoken to his heart: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44).

What? Love your enemies? Pray for those who are attempting to hurt you? Instantly, Mosab felt as if he were struck by lightning! Never before had he heard a message like this. Never before. And yet he knew with an abrupt awareness that defies rational description “that this was the message [he] had been searching for all [his] life” (The Son of Hamas, p. 122).

Since that day, Mosab has become a devoted disciple of this prophet from Nazareth, the one who taught him that there is no enemy out there who we must hate and attack. Jesus taught him that his only true enemy is in fact the hatred and anger and violence that had taken hold of his heart.

But the Word of God is not chained. Just let that gospel message loose into the world and who knows what effect it might have! Let those trapped in cycles of violence hear words of truth and beauty from the Prince of Peace, and who knows how the Spirit might begin to transform them and their communities!

Do you think that you and I here remember and recognize how truly radical and revolutionary this Word of God is? How life-altering is this message of the Gospel? Let’s face it. It is not our primary instinct to love our enemies. It is not a natural reaction to never seek after revenge. It is not normal to reject all anger and hatred, to never allow a root of bitterness to grow up within our hearts.

When Paul was held in prison for the sake of the gospel, he writes letters to his friends. But does not ask for help with organizing a raid party, to organize a prison break? Never does not write to his friends to organize a secret militia to attack the prison. Never does he seek revenge by plotting to assassinate the Roman official who put him there. Never does he do this, because the logos of God has gripped and changed his heart.

This word, this message, this Gospel has power to change people, to change communities, to change the world.

Do we come back to God and give thanks for the healing and grace which we have received through this Word? Or are we like the nine others who take it for granted, and consider this gift of little value?
Let us be the ones who do not take the word of God for granted, but who continually recognize and give thanks for the amazing gift that we have received here in the message of the Gospel. Amen.