Choosing the Eternal Bridegroom

Matthew 25:1-13

The people of Israel faced a crucial time of discernment: who will they serve?

Jesus said that we cannot serve two masters.

Yahweh chose Abraham and his descendants as his own people, and Yahweh wanted them to choose Him, to love Him as much as He loved them. For this reason the analogy of marriage often is used.

We, the “wedding guests,” are invited to become one with Christ, to marry the bridegroom and to behave accordingly in the world. In this marriage, we give ourselves to Christ fully, in heart, soul, mind and strength.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Soul

Matthew 5:1-12

What is the soul? And where does it go when our bodies die?

One definition is that soul refers to the sacred depths of ourselves, the dimension of our being where we experience meaning, passion, and compassion. We are most alive when we are one with our soul.

Often we are not in touch with, connected with, our soul. One reason we meet in worship is to connect with the sacred depths of ourselves.

The kingdom of this world is governed by a very different spirit than in the Kingdom of God. When we are totally consumed by the kingdom of this world we can easily lose connection with our soul, even if we become wealthy, successful and admired. We can gain the world and lose our soul.

There are many signs of disconnection with our soul, including when we are judgmental, over-identified with our religion or political party, when our thoughts are obsessive and we have imagined conversations.

How do we reconnect with our soul? Stop, look, then go! First we stop, intentionally pause the hamster wheel of thoughts and be still. Then we look, we behold this moment and find what there is to be grateful for and what are the opportunities of this moment. Then, we go, and act on the insight that comes from our own insight and intuition.

And where does the soul go when we die? John O’Donohue says, “When the soul leaves the body it is no longer under the burden and control of space and time. It is free…the dead are our nearest neighbors….” 

The souls of the deceased are here; we have falsely spatialized the eternal world which is not a place but a different state of being. The dead are in an invisible form, and can be sensed with the refinement of our soul. Soul sees soul. It is not known intellectually.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Currency

Matthew 22:15-22

The question of taxes is a divisive and heated issue, not just now but also in the time of Jesus as is seen in this week’s Gospel with the imperial tax.

The discussion was intended to put Jesus between a rock and a hard place, with nowhere to turn. But Jesus refused to play that game.

Jesus plays a different game, that of a life centered in God, the Kingdom of Heaven which has a different “currency” than does the kingdom of the world.

His currency is that of love, forgiveness, compassion. And what bears God’s image, and therefore belongs to God? You and me. We are to offer all of ourselves to God, which we do at each celebration of the Eucharist.

We tend to tell ourselves that if we get all of our worldly concerns met, we’ll have time for the concerns of God—loving and serving our neighbors.

That’s not the way it works in the Kingdom of God. We are to first seek the Kingdom of God, and to give first the currency of love, mercy, humility, compassion, and faithfulness to God.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The King’s Invitation

Matthew 22:1-14

The parable of the king’s wedding feast is a parable about the Kingdom of God. We are invited to join the feast, and to enter into the Kingdom of God.

The religious leaders of the time rejected the invitation. They didn’t want to be changed, to be transformed. They preferred their familiar, routine, lives. 

We are like this. We often prefer to remain citizens of the mundane world, to live our lives as usual under the reign of our own will.

Just belonging to the Church is not enough. We’re called to go beyond silent attendance. Hearing the call is easy. Marrying the Son of God is difficult, because this requires us to actually change our lives.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

What is Our Function?

Matthew 21:33-46

The contours of our lives can be shaped by our desire to know Christ, as we pursue what we know to be the function of our lives—to know Christ and the power of his Resurrection.

We can get so caught up with the form of our lives, of our church, that we forget the function. Outer form may be all important. This was the case of St. Paul until, for Christ’s sake, he suffered the loss of all things.

The outward forms of Paul’s life were not in service to his new function in Christ, and thus he considered them as loss. New wines require new wineskins, new forms.

We now live in what some call “the age of authenticity” in which people look inward to find their truth, with concomitant distrust of inherited institutions.

This is a liminal, threshold moment for Christ Church. We seek to discern God’s calling in our lives together, our function, in the days and years to come.

We will soon have an all parish retreat to discern our function and mission. We have the opportunity to let go of old forms, reckless in our love, so that new life might spring eternal.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

In Hard Times

Matthew 21:23-32

The chief preachers and elders feel threatened by Jesus, for a number of reasons. They challenged his authority. He responded with hard questions.

Unlike the chief preachers and elders, we have Jesus to be with us when we face hard questions. And God provides for us in hard times.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Reward of the Vineyard

Matthew 20:1-16

This week’s Gospel is the parable of the householder, landowner, and the day laborers.

We who live out our lives in a market economy might have trouble with this parable. But Jesus begins this parable with “the Kingdom of Heaven is like…”

From the householder’s view, the point is not what you get, but the fact that you work in the “vineyard,” the spiritual reality that permeates our physical, mental and social life.

We are sent into the material world to manifest more and more the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The work itself is the reward, the joy is in the contribution, in joining with the Lord of the Vineyard in creating a new and better world.

Isn’t this the joy for which we yearn? Jesus’ parable tells us that everyone who works in the vineyard receives “our daily bread.” The market/s tit for tat consciousness is replaced with the overflowing generosity consciousness of Jesus, God’s amazing, undeserved, grace.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Forgiveness

Matthew 18:15-20

Houston Smith, the great scholar of religions, said that forgiveness is most characteristic of Christianity.

Two-thirds of the teachings of Jesus are related to forgiveness, says Fr. Richard Rohr. Forgiveness was fundamental for Jesus. He forgave those who had tortured and crucified him.

But payback and its cousins is rampant in our world today. There has even been a popular TV show called “Revenge.” Revenge is seen as a virtue in many societies today.

There are evolutionary, biological bases for our predilection to strike back. But to act on such impulses is not good for us or for other. We can learn to rise above such instinctive responses.

In today’s Gospel, a king extended extravagant mercy, giving a slave and his family a future with freedom, hope and possibility. Yet this slave turned around and refused to forgive the debt of another, taking away the hope and future of the other.

Justice, alone, can take away a hope and a future. These often can only come through love, mercy, grace and forgiveness.

If we refuse to forgive others, this limits the flow of God’s mercy and forgiveness to and through us.

Are we willing to release our need to be right, and our need for retribution? Are we willing to break the cycle of pain, and follow Jesus in forgiveness?

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

True Community

Matthew 18:15-20

Matthew was concerned with community. We all say we want it, and we generally have no idea it is to come by

The framework for reconciliation provided in this week’s Gospel is much harder than talking behind people’s backs. Many of us have no background in resolving conflicts. Walking away is what we know best.

In this week’s Gospel passage, Jesus is teaching a skill for reconciliation and restoration of community. A skill isn’t enough; there must also be humility and love, found in relationship with God.

A history of repentance is helpful in reconciliation. Our egos bend more easily. Prayer practices can prepare us for this.

Our world needs true community. Too often, we settle for a surface level or false community. 

Communities often form around a negative view of an “out group”, and become oppositional groups which are not true communities but rather loose alliances of those with similar grievances.

Our Christ Church motto is “going deeper.” As we do this, we find that true community is not so much something we build, but something we discover in the deeper level of communion among the Trinitarian God.

God pulls us into community. When two or three are gathered to seek agreement, Christ is an active presence drawing them together.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Lose Your Surface Life

Matthew 16:21-28

Jesus rebuked Peter for setting his mind on human things, not Divine things.

Peter’s mind was rooted in the culture and beliefs of his day. We, too, are immersed in our culture and draw on human ways of doing things to solve our problems, not on God’s ways.

Our minds, hearts and will must be transformed to not be captured by the ways of our world.

How do we lose our surface life? We set our minds on Divine things by intentionally spending time emptying our minds of human things and steeping our minds in Divine things. Being in church is one of the ways we do this.

One hour on Sunday morning isn’t enough in light of the clamor of our culture. So we can spend time daily in prayer, devotions, noticing the presence of God in nature and creatures. We can catch ourselves when negative emotions arise, and ask ourselves if we’re focused on Divine things or human things.

We can learn to more and more live our lives from our deeper self, having lost our surface selves for Jesus’ sake and found our true life in Him.

Scripture quotations are from New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.