[sermon] the veil is thin, the misuses of authority, and other spooky topics

Sermon for the people of God at St. Mark Hope and Peace Lutheran Church
All Saints Day Observed 2017-11-05

Preaching Texts: Matthew 23:1-12, Micah 3:5-12.

This is the time of year when the veil between life and death is thin.

For those of us who are a little touched – a little superstitious, a little psychic, a little mystical – it’s a thing we can feel, this time of year when the leaves turn colors, then shrivel and fall, when the first frost comes – the veil is thin and ghosts and spirits are closer than normal.

This is the time of year when pagans celebrate Samhain. This is the time of year, a medieval rabbi tells us, when “there is a night when the souls come out of their graves."

People of many faiths have noticed that this is the spooky time of year.

Which is why we celebrate All Saints Day on November 1, and the day before, October 31 is All Saints Eve – or All Hallows Eve – Halloween.

And the day after, November 2, is All Souls Day.

Some traditions draw – or have drawn in the past – a distinction between All Saints and All Souls Day, where All Souls Day is the commemoration of all the “faithful departed,” that is, all Christians who have died, and All Saints Day remembers those faithful departed who were especially good at being Christian.

We like to divide things into categories, especially when they’re scary – when the spirits of the dead are hovering, we like to be able to sort them out, make them a little more susceptible to our logic and our categories.

It is this distinction between “Saints” and “ordinary Christians” that I want to talk about with you, this All Saints Day Observed – because in life as well as in death we are fond of dividing people into categories.

In many Protestant denominations All Souls Day has been eliminated, or All Souls and All Saints have been merged, working on the assumption that all believers are saints (and of course, that all believers are sinners, even those who are saints), which is in keeping with the faith of our ancestors – the faith of Paul, who addresses letters to the beloved saints of Rome, of Corinth, of Philippi.

And, of course, in keeping with the faith of Jesus, who tells us to call no one rabbi, or father, or instructor – those titles of honor, like bishop, or pastor, or saint, that separate “ordinary Christians” from “super extraordinary special Christians.”

Jesus is addressing an audience with two parts – the crowds, and his disciples.

This is Holy Week, and Jesus has been teaching in the Temple all day, answering challenges from various factions. The crowd that greeted him on Palm Sunday has followed him into the Temple and has been enjoying the show – the overturning of tables, the parables, the arguments with Saducees and Pharisees. The verse that comes right before our passage tells us that from now on, no one dared to ask Jesus any questions. He has overawed them. And, knowing that it is Holy Week and that he is heading to the Cross, Jesus has some final instructions. There are still several more chapters of Matthew’s Gospel before the crucifixion, but this is Jesus’ last chance to address the whole crowd.

So, here is this crowd, gathering for Jesus’ sermon, and he opens by saying that they’re to follow the Pharisees’ teaching, although not their example, which is not a huge surprise – Jesus, like the Pharisees, teaches that religion is a part of life, affecting everything you do.

Jesus identifies the Pharisees who “make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long,” those who don’t just wear religious attire but make their religious attire obvious so that everyone knows that they are very religious. Their phylacteries are boxes holding scripture, designed to remind the wearer of God’s goodness and might in rescuing Israel from Egypt, and of the commandment to love and serve God with heart and soul. But in their ostentatious form they serve more to remind the viewer of the piety of the wearer, rather than to remind the wearer of his obligation to God.

Jesus enumerates the privileges that these very visibly religious people have: the best seats at dinner parties, the best seats in the synagogue, respectful greetings from everyone they meet.

And Jesus says, to his audience of Pharisees and ordinary people and his own disciples, it’s not supposed to be like that, not for Jesus’ followers. They aren’t to claim titles like “rabbi” because Jesus is the only teacher they need. They aren’t to call anyone Father because only God is worthy of that title.

The greatest title in the Kingdom of God, the title that Jesus’ followers should aspire to? “Servant.” If you try to exalt yourself, you’ll be made humble. And the servants will be lifted high.

There is a system – I would say “the old system” but let’s be real, it’s a perpetual system that reinvents itself generation upon generation – that designates some people as “holy” and then gives all sorts of material benefits to those holy people.

The way the system works doesn’t just benefit those to whom those benefits accrue, though. They are part of a system of exchange, where “ordinary people” will give extra respect to religious people in exchange for the religious people “doing their religion” for them.

There are several problems with that. It gives too much power to some people. It gives too little power to others. And most importantly, it gives too little power to God.

-It is not good for anyone to have too much power, in any realm. It’s why our system of government is designed so that no one branch has unchecked power.

There are some people who are not worthy of the authority that we give them. Like those religious leaders in Jesus’ time who put on a show of being religious, wearing the right clothes and saying the right words, but failing to do the right thing, or like the prophets of Micah’s time who “gave oracles for money,” who prophesied good things to those who gave them good things to eat.

We know that the prophet Micah comes from a small town called Moresheth, southwest of Jerusalem, and that he lived about 700 years before the birth of Christ.

The rest of Micah’s biography is found in the passage Rick read this morning. “As for me, I am filled with power, with the spirit of the LORD, with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and Israel his sin.”

Micah condemns a variety of people with formal religious titles – seers, diviners, and the official prophets employed by the king or the Temple to provide guidance. His complaint is that these officials have become mercenary – they will provide good news for the right price, but predict – or perhaps summon – catastrophe against the poor.

Micah contrasts the official prophets, corrupt, greedy, and cut off from God, with his own calling. Micah has been filled with God’s spirit and power, with God’s justice and might and the authority to declare God’s justice to the people of Judah.

The measure of power and authority is not in the job title “prophet” – or “teacher” or “saint” – but in the act of prophesying or teaching.

So, let me be clear, when I talk about “religious authority,” I realize that we are a church with a pastor, a bishop, a presiding bishop, all of whom are faithful and hardworking servants of God. When it comes to whether we have religious professionals, people called “teacher” or “father” or “pastor” – that ship has sailed.

And, while I think there are certain dangers and temptations that are particular to some vocations, there are also moments when all of us are tempted to let other people take care of “doing religion” for us. And those of us with some authority in the church – absolutely including lay leaders and certainly including me – must be careful with the responsibility that comes with that authority and not, well, let it go to our heads.

In a couple of weeks, at Thanksgiving dinner tables around the country, people will turn to their aunts and stepfathers and family friends and say, “You’re a pastor. You say grace.”

We are all equipped to pray. We are not all equally eloquent, but we are all equipped to give thanks to God for God’s gifts. No advanced degree or specialized vocabulary required.

Saying grace at Thanksgiving is a small thing, but there are bigger things that we are willing to let other people be responsible for. Things like building hope, and proclaiming peace, and preparing a way for the Lord.

When I say we let others “do our religion for us” I mean a variety of things.

I mean the belief in magical church fairies who come and set up chairs for events and wash communion cups.

I mean looking at religious people we admire – like the saints we remember today – and deciding that we’ll never be that brave or wise and generous, so we might as well go on being cowardly and foolish and selfish.

I mean, very concretely, the feeling of pride I had when Pr. Donna went to Ferguson three years ago, as if her marching was something I had a claim to.


And to some extent, I mean things that are individual. We are not all called to the same tasks or the same professions. We have many kinds of relationships with God.

and God has designed the Body of Christ so that we each have unique and important gifts, and lack other gifts, so that we must rely on one another.

But no one’s role is sitting passively. There is some role, some task, for which God has uniquely sanctified you – for which God has made you a patron saint.

Maybe you’re a patron saint of paperwork, or of cheerful customer service, or of driving people to church. Maybe you’re a patron saint of low-wage workers, or immigrants, or transgender people.

There is work that only you are equipped to do.

And there is work that we are all called to do. We are all called to pray. We are all called to give from the resources we have. We are all called to study scripture.

We are all called to love our neighbors with active, giving, sacrificial love.

We are all called to the communion table, and called to share its joy with the world.

When we assign teaching and prophecy and holiness to an elite group of people, we remove it from ourselves, put holiness – its power and its obligations – out there, or up there, or back there [gesture to the chancel] or, in the case of the saints remembered today, back then, completely outside the realm of the living.

But this is the time of the year when the boundary between life and death is thin. And holiness has a way year round of slipping past the boundaries we try to place around it. Holiness escapes the walls of the church, the pages of scripture, the lives of departed saints – and makes the whole world holy.

[sermon] Living in Sin

[sermon for the people of Abiding Peace Lutheran Church. Preached 2010-07-06.]

Luke 7: 46-50

Living in Sin

I have Good News for you -- wonderful news -- gospel news -- you are an incorrigible sinner! You are living in sin.

That phrase has been co-opted to mean cohabiting with a person with whom you aren't in a publicly committed relationship, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about LIVING in sin, living in a sin-drenched world. Being born into sin and growing up in sin and being steeped in sin.

Living in a world of broken promises. A world with no right choices. A world where, by going about our daily lives, we sin. We are gluttons, consuming the world's energy and polluting its resources. We are disconnected from each other by cultural mores that define the spaces between us with privacy and shame and keep us from life-sustaining, nourishing relationships.

I, personally, think uncharitable thoughts about fifteen times an hour.

We spend money on luxuries. We are soaked in inescapable privilege. We do not do all the good we could do.

We are lazy, slothful, arrogant. We sell ourselves short and deny the goodness of God's intention for us.

No matter which way we turn, we sin, because we live in a sinful culture and are part of a sinful species. We are called to perfection and we fall short.

When we make a searching and fearless moral inventory (Step Four) we discover that we are powerless over sin. We are slaves to sin and cannot free ourselves.

I know the last time you 'went to confession' -- it was only a few minutes ago. And I gave you space for that fearless moral inventory, and maybe you used it, and maybe you confessed to God, in the safety of this holy place, the nature and extent of your sin.

I hope so.

I hope you realize that you, just like everyone else, just like me, are sinful. Because knowing is so much more joyful than not knowing.

This morning's gospel tells us about two sinners -- one a woman of the city, the other a Pharisee named Simon.

I say they're both sinners, but I could just as easily say they're both human. To be human is to fall short of God's glory, to take actions that thwart God's plans, to be unheroic and cowardly and judgmental and slothful and sinful.

But we know, specifically, that these two humans are sinners, because the text tells us. It doesn't tell us the nature of the woman's sin -- no, it really doesn't! -- just that she is a woman of means, a sinner, and faithful.

Simon, on the other hand, is inhospitable, unloving, self-righteous, and judgmental. He sins in failing to anoint and welcome Jesus, and he sins in judging the woman who does. Simon is a sinner like lots of us -- a self-righteous sinner with a log in his eye. He is religious and good at religion. He is good at the Law, and you know what? I bet he's good at giving alms. He invites Jesus into his house! He sets a place for Jesus! -- He knows, let us say, that just living, and not burnt offerings, is pleasing to God. He is a Pharisee, which means he is moving away from Temple-focused, sacrifice-rich Judaism. He interprets the law for daily living for diasporic Hebrews under occupation. He's very good at this.

And he is miserably unhappy, because he refuses to accept the Good News that he is a sinner.

The woman has accepted this news. She's absorbed this news into her skin, and if Simon's reaction is any indications, she's reminded of it daily by people in the city.

Nevermind them, though -- she's learned to ignore them.

It's the way queer folks are ignoring protesters at Pride events this weekend -- those sad, miserable-looking men and women holding signs that tell gay, joyous marchers that we are sinners. Duh, we know that -- at least, I do -- although not at all for the reasons the protesters think.

If you pretend you aren't a sinner -- if you fight and fight and fight against all your body's urges -- if, like Martin Luther, pre-lightning bolt, you tally every evil thought as if you could exorcise the sins by listing them 00 if ou make a fearless searching moral inventory of Them, of the religious right, of Roman Catholicism, the Republican party, the people marching in the parades you don't approve of -- you will be miserable like Simon.

BUT, if you hear the Good News, and let it change you -- if you believe the Good News --

-- you will be like the woman and throw yourself at God's feet, begging for mercy.

You will not count the cost or consider the consequences, because you will know you can't save yourself.

You will not wonder when the money you spent on the ointment might've been better spent, because you will know that, no matter how wisely you give, there will always be better causes, more equitable distributions.

And God will welcome you home, wash away your tears and forgive your sins and turn you around to face the world again, telling you to try, this time, to fail better.

So you will try, and you will fail, and you will confess, and God will forgive, and you will repent, and you will try again --

and like the sinful woman, you will come and go in peace.