Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

Empire is not a friend of anyone. Empire does not strive towards the well-being and thriving of every created life. Empire puts wealth, resources, knowledge, comfort, and God's abundance in the hands of a few. While others live lives of insecurity, uncertainty, misery, and hopelessness.

An empire of human beings are nothing but a form of commodity and high value is placed on materiality, military force, and war. Empire distorts our understanding of peace of order and of happiness. And sadly, empire places more value on the lives of some and less on others. An empire makes our neighbors other.

Importantly, swimming in the waters of empire put our identities as Christians in jeopardy. It is at odds with our proclamation of Christ being our true king. It is also at odds with every one of us living into the promises of God. and people becoming who God created us to be. Instead of holding most firmly to our Christian identities, empire encourages us to hold on tightly to, even idolize, identities of race, of nationality, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, political affiliations, political ideologies, political leaders, economic and social status.

The fallout has been, is, and will continue to be enormous. We now live in a world that is more divided and volatile than ever. We have become a people driven by fear, greed, self-preservation, iInstead of ones motivated by love, hope, generosity and grace, but all is not lost.

You're downtown. You're on your way to the Bengals game,

and you see a panhandler on the street with a sign. Hungry. Please give. You do one of three things. You pull out your

wallet and give him a dollar. Or you shake your head to say no. Or you look straight ahead, trying not to

catch his eye as you walk by him.

And then you feel guilty and you wonder, Did I just

become a goat because I did not feed the least of my brothers and sisters?

Jesus told me that when I feed the hungry, I'm feeding the king. And when I

refuse, I refuse the king. And as you

keep walking with those troubling thoughts, you look up and you see six more

panhandlers ahead of you

Is every single panhandler the king who judges us? Are we

being tested every time we do or do not help the needy? Does a king really count up all of the times

that we give a handout and balance them out against all the times we don't?

The king gathers up everybody and separates the good from

the bad. Or as we say in theological terms, separates the keepies from the

creepies. The sheep from the goats.

Which I kind of object to because I think it's unfair to goats. So, for today,

I am going to substitute for the more accurate hagfish. Also known as slime

eels. Because hagfish are out only for themselves. And they spew slime at any

strangers who come near. Just like in

this story.

You all may have heard this story from Jesus described as

an economy of virtues. I've heard it that way in the past. God gives us each a

spiritual gift some people are special, so they get more gifts, a very

convenient translation for all the high achievers in the room. Anyway, everyone

gets something and don't worry, God won't give you more than you can handle.

But, just like late-stage capitalism, this story doesn't

check out. God wants a good return on his investment? Better read up on those self-improvement

manuals because Jesus is coming, so you better look busy.

The end of that story is some idealized version of

Streets of Gold and Gates of Pearl, where all the people who annoyed you here

on Earth are far away, and you can just sit alone in a big white room, eating

bonbons, while angels circle round and sing Latin renditions of Toby Keith

songs.

The moral of that story is, use the gifts that God has

given you, so you can get that divine pat on the back and hear the words we all

long to hear, well done, good and faithful servant.

Today I'd like to look at this Gospel lesson from a

different perspective. I'd like to ask, what if? What if this passage is less

about getting what you deserve, and more about an impending and uncalendared

eschaton that begs us to examine our lives and ask the question, if Jesus stood

before me today, would I be ready to give an account for the hope that is

within me?

We can certainly relate to these foolish bridesmaids. I mean, I certainly can. In the busyness of our lives,

not always are we able to think three or four or five steps ahead. Not always are we able to consider all of the

additional planning we need to have in mind.

Particularly in the busyness of our lives, we may be hustling through

each day. We may be realizing we don't have a meal covered or we don't have

time for a project or time for something for work or school.

We may need to figure out how we're going to take

care of a family member or provide transportation to a soccer match. or how

we're going to work in a commitment we've made in this community. We find ourselves scrambling to get back on

track. We may reach out to others for help,

and they may be scrambling too.

So, life can be messy. So, we can relate to foolish

bridesmaids. But what about the wise

bridesmaids? They

were clearly not willing to share their oil, not willing to function as a

community with the others and give

others advice that sends them away and ultimately keeps them out of the

banquet.

Doesn't this fly in the face of so many of Jesus's

teachings of sharing what we have of loving our neighbor as ourselves? We may be able to relate to these wise bridesmaids

on those times, those occasions when we find ourselves really prepared and on

top of things. And possibly not

impressed by those who are kind of straggling in at the last minute with work

half done like we have done ourselves on many occasions.

Life is so complicated. It has so many experts, so much

advice. We want to live well. We want to do well. So we turn to the experts.

And so that's my excuse for telling you about the other day when I went with

friends to a Chinese restaurant. I don't usually meet for Chinese. I like my

cooking just fine.

But the restaurants have one thing that I don't have, fortune cookies. It used to be that those little slips of paper inside the fortune cookies contained real fortunes. Like the ones that come from the Zotar fortune teller booth at the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Fortunes like, good news will come to you today. Or, you will discover your hidden talent. Or, you Romance will come soon.At some point, they morphed into little three inch pieces of wisdom. Like the one I got once that said, Just because others are bad does not imply that you are good. If that cookie weren't cut in half, it might have seen me look hurt.But I think that the messages in those cookies try to take their wisdom, such as it is, from the old masters. Sometimes there's something there, so we hope. So last Tuesday with great anticipation, of course I cracked open my fortune cookie and it said, I kid you not.It said, "Things in life should be simple rather than

complicated." Channeling Jesus, I wondered. Funny. Did that fortune cookie just

read my mind? It's not that complicated. You are surrounded by all these

authorities. You have Teachers, Pharisees. Rabbis, but in the end, it's simple

in your spiritual life as a faithful child of God, you have one teacher, one

authority, one path, one goal.

When I was a child, my Yaya used to tell us that our

Halloween costumes are supposed to scare away the devil. So, the more

terrifying your costume, the better. But still, in the midst of it all, I had

this overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by terror. It felt like more than

just a children's game.

Just then, a familiar tune played in my head. "Let your

little light shine, shine, shine. Let your little light shine, oh my Lord.

There must be someone down in the valley, trying to get home."

And I looked up, and beyond the chaos, I saw something

that I didn't know I was searching for. In the midst of a people hiding behind

masks with weapons in hand and psychological terror in mind. A beacon of light

showed up in the form of a red sweater.

While most other people there chose to dress as

werewolves and wizards, this neighbor decided to dress as one of the most

iconic childhood heroes of my generation. Standing right in front of me was

none other than everyone's favorite Presbyterian minister, Mr. Rogers.

Tyler had the costume down to a tee. The khaki pants, the

blue sneakers, the salt and pepper hair, and a little lapel pin of the friendly

face of Fred Rogers, just in case anyone was confused about who he was dressed

as. I couldn't help but think, if the devil is frightened by anything at all, it

would be this, a warm heart, a kind face, a welcoming word, and a cheerful

embrace.

And we can choose not to allow God to influence our beliefs.

We can believe what we already believed and then approach the altar of God and

hope to leave unchanged. By saying, these things are the things that God cares

about and these are our concerns. We can walk into this space and leave our

cares and troubles for the world out there and come in here and just talk about

our personal feelings or piety and talk about things like faith and hope and

grace and churchy words.

And you can come up to this altar and take bread from some

man in a dress and then you can go back out into the world and forget about all

this stuff and leave it here and not allow this to influence that and not allow

that to influence this. Which leads me to the question. What part of your life

does not belong to God?

What part of your life does God not care about? I encourage

you today when you go home, take out a piece of paper and a pen and make a

list. Or pull your phone out, grab

your little notepad on your phone and go ahead and make a list

of the things in your life that God doesn't care about.

We recognize authority. We place our trust in the people that

we recognize are actually doing the work of love in our lives. Think for a

moment about those you actually trust. The people in whom you put your trust.

Is it the people with all the best words? Or is it the people that you have

seen, time and again, show up for you in love and care.

We place authority in others based on what we see in them.

We place our trust in people based on if we believe, after watching them in our

lives, that we can trust them, that they will care for us, that they will love

us the way we love them. The sad and painful thing that we see today in this

story is that the chief priests and the elders who are the people who are

responsible for the faith life of the community don't recognize the power and

presence of God when it is right in front of them.

They have not lived their lives in such a way that they can

recognize God's work when it's happening right in front of them. They don't see

God's authority in the love and the power and the miracle and teaching of Jesus

because they have not constructed their lives in such a way that they place

authority and trust in God's love.

The story that Jesus is telling is about a working-class guy who owes his boss 10,000 talents or about 60 million dollars today. Does that sound a little

unreasonable? Yeah, it is. Friends, it's not possible. Jesus is telling a story about a person who owes a completely

unreasonable and unpayable debt.

It's such a ridiculous number that when the master says

it's time to call to account and pay for it, the servant says, I'll do whatever

I can. I'll work for the rest of my life. I'll pay you back. I swear. And the

master's like, I mean, no, you won't. You're never going to make 60 million.

Are you going to play the lottery? Like what's your plan?

In that moment, the master

forgives him. And the point isn't that he forgives a big debt. The point is

that he forgives an unforgivable debt. The point isn't that he forgives

something that the slave would have to spend the rest of his life trying to pay

off. The point is that he's forgiving something the slave will never, ever, in

all of history, possibly pay off.

So this slave is

forgiven, and then he turns around, and he's so excited, and he goes out, and

in the middle of his excitement, he sees his other slave friend, who owes him a hundred denari, about 5k today. It's kind of small compared to 60 million. He's just been forgiven

an unforgivable debt. He has just been forgiven a 60 millions dollar debt. And he

sees someone who owes him 5k. And he goes, put that guy in jail. It's the debtor's prison for him.

This is the story Jesus is telling. Is he telling a story

of how often we should forgive? Of how many times? No. Is he even telling a

story of how big a sin we should forgive? Again, no. Jesus is trying to change

our relationship with forgiveness. How do you and I, how do we relate to

forgiveness? What is our relationship with forgiveness? How do we understand it? He recognizes that most of us

keep score.

Now working at a coffee shop can teach you a lot about

humans. The one I worked at called itself People's Third Place. You have your

work, you have home, and you have your third place. A place where you feel like

you belong. Where you know that people are looking for you to be there. Where

you're loved and you can show up in pajama pants and a messy bun and people are

just glad to see you.

Some people though come into a third place and they take

their cup and they leave, telling themselves that they know coffee.

But what I've seen is that the people who stay, get

comfortable, and settle in, and share their lives together, and tell stories

together, and try Sam's weird smoothie concoction he came up with that has

espresso in it for some reason, the people who hold the alley door open for you

on trash day, those were not just coffee people, but coffee shop people.

What I found is that Jesus is a lot more like a French

press than a Keurig cup.