Radical Grace

Audio recording of “Radical Grace” recorded during worship. (23:12 – Quality is somewhat poor.)
Delivered at Evangelical Lutheran Church, Mt. Horeb, WI. Lent 1, Year A
Texts: Gen 2.15-17; 3:1-7; Rom 5.12-19; Matt 4.1-11

We often think Lent is about giving something up. We give up a variety of things for a variety of reasons. Candy, coffee, meat, television, video games, you name it. My campus minister in college used to give up jelly beans for Lent. Of course, she told us right out that this was more because she was a purist and didn’t believe in celebrating Easter before it actually arrived. One year while I was in college, a friend of mine gave up swearing. That one lasted all the way until we all met up to go to Ash Wednesday services together that evening.

We feel like we should test ourselves to resist temptation because of Jesus’ tests we read about today. Or, we feel this is a time to punish ourselves for our sinfulness. But, Lent is neither a time to test ourselves nor punish ourselves. Lent is like a spiritual pit stop, a time to change the oil, rotate the tires, and fuel up.

In the Bible, the number forty is significant. It means “enough,” just like we use “a hundred” or “a thousand” to mean “a lot.” So, “forty days” or “forty years” means “long enough,” but for what? Forty days was “long enough” for God to cleanse the world of sin while Noah was on the Ark; it was “long enough” to give Moses the Ten Commandments and establish a covenant with Israel; it was “long enough” to prepare the Israelites to enter the Promised Land. “Long enough”—not too long, not to short, but just right, and just as long as it takes to get the job done. In each of these stories, God is trying to establish or fix a relationship between God and humanity.

When God leads Jesus into the wilderness for 40 days God is again setting out establish and repair relationships. At Jesus’ baptism, God has just announced to the world that he is God’s beloved Son. Now, immediately after this, Jesus is “cast out” (from Mark) into the wilderness so that he and God can work out what it means to be the Son of God. But, God is also trying to repair a relationship—with all of humanity.

In the beginning, back in the Garden of Eden, God created the world and saw that it was good. God created Adam and Eve to be God’s helpers in the garden. But, they wanted more. They wanted to be like God, they wanted to do things their way, have their wills be done. And so, they disobeyed God’s will.

In the wilderness, Jesus is faced with the same temptations they found in the garden. There is no question in his mind that he is the Son of God—God has said so. There is no question of whether he will be able to resist. Instead test in the sense of an evaluation, this is a test in the sense that it is an opportunity for Jesus to let go of himself and trust completely in God.

First, he refuses to care for his own bodily needs by turning the stones into bread. Instead he relies on God to care for him, just like God took care of the Israelites with manna. Next, he refuses to show his power, to prove that he really is like God. He refuses to accept glory or praise for being who he is, trusting that God’s glory alone is enough. Finally, he refuses the opportunity to fix the world himself, to let his will be done. He trusts that God’s will is better than his own. Where Adam and Eve disobeyed God, Jesus obeyed. These temptations are no tests at all, but instead are a chance for him to live into his identity as the Son of God.

Where Adam and Eve failed, Christ succeeded. Where they saw temptation, he saw only God’s glory. Where they fell, he was raised up. According to Paul, just as Adam’s one sin of disobedience brought death into the world, Christ’s one righteous act of obedience on the cross wiped it out.

But, this might be good time to mention that the story of Adam and Eve is not history. It is not a “just so” story about how sin came into the world at the beginning. It is a metaphor for what happens to each and every one of us every day of our lives. We constantly face decisions which we ought to handle with the knowledge of God’s commands and God’s love, but instead we trust our own judgements and our human systems. We reach out to take the fruit, to turn the stones into bread, to leap from the temple. Every day, we bow down to Satan so that our will might be done.

Even those of us who are good people—and I know many good people here—cannot escape sin. In this country, when we buy a pair of jeans, we support child labor in Indonesia. When we drive our cars to work, we contribute to pollution and climate change. When we eat strawberries, we pay for illegal immigrants to make the dangerous crossing over our border and work for a pittance at a job that American workers would never stand for. As the richest 20% of people in the world, our culture hoards 80% of the world’s resources, leaving 5 billion people to starve and struggle in poverty. Even though nobody in this room has committed any of these acts, we incur guilt simply by feeding our families, wearing our clothes, and sleeping in our beds. This pervasive and systemic evil is the result of the Adam and Eve within each of us insisting on providing for ourselves and living according to our own will. Death truly has dominion in all of us because we are all guilty.

But—even though the Adam or the Eve in us continually rejects God, through the grace of Christ, God continually accepts us. Even though our Adam sinned first, Christ not only covers the debt, but gives a free gift of grace over and above the penalty. As a result, Adam and Christ don’t just cancel each other out. In Christ, we are not returned to a state of Eden, from where we might fall again, but to a state of Heaven, where even when we fall, we receive only more grace. Sin and fall and fail though we will, we cannot fall far enough to bottom out of God’s grace. When God should sentence us to death, God instead sentences us to life—full, abundant  life—with God. God invites us to live into our newfound identity as God’s sons and daughters. To understand how to do that, we observe Lent.

During Lent, we reflect on our sin and brokenness—the things which keep us from God. We see how much power Death has over us and we see where the Adam and Eve in each of us has exerted our will over God’s. Only when we see how hopelessly we are enslaved to sin can we even begin to comprehend the length and breadth and depth of God’s amazing and reckless love for us. It is through this love and faithfulness on God’s part that God works with us to daily drown that old sinner, that old Adam and Eve, in each of us in the waters of our baptism and wash them away just like we wash off the accumulated muck and grim in our daily shower. Even though we tromp and splash through the mud of sin and evil every day, God takes us tenderly in God’s arms and washes us off, like a mother gently washing her babe in the kitchen sink, wiping off the mess of spaghetti sauce and crusty baby vomit that we have so gleefully smeared all over ourselves.

During this season of Lent, we remember that God has saved us from sin for a ministry. God has a mission for each of us: to tell the world about this amazing grace and to invite others into God’s kingdom. Lent reminds us that this invitation is on God’s terms, not our own. Like Jesus in the wilderness, we remember that we are dependent on every word from the mouth of God for our existence. The words which fall to us from God’s lips are words of kindness, equality, justice, acceptance, forgiveness, reconciliation and love. God has shown us that in the kingdom of heaven, even when we completely screw up, even when we continually and wantonly make crappy choices that hurt ourselves, our families, and our communities, and even pain the heart of God, through the free gift of grace which Christ has given us, there is always room for reconciliation. God’s grace means responding to hate, greed, apathy, scorn, hostility and even to violence with love. Sometimes it means tough love, but in the end, it always means LOVE.

To live out God’s radical grace to a broken world means to BE TOTALLY POSITIVE PEOPLE, just like the pledge we took in worship a few weeks ago: to act in love, to react in kindness, and to give ourselves and our brothers and sisters room to fail in love, trusting that in God, we all succeed.

Like Jesus’ time in the wilderness, Lent is about exploring what it means for us to be children of God and discerning how to live into that reality. For some, this spiritual tune-up might mean giving up coffee or sugar, but what it means for all of us is taking time to spend with our Father in Heaven so that God can help us respond to the voice of Christ crying out, “Repent, the kingdom of heaven has come near!”

The Nintendo Game of Life

Delivered at Trinity Lutheran Church, Pottsville, PA. Epiphany 3, Year B.
Texts: Jonah 3.1-5, 10; 1 Cor 7.29-31; Mk 1.14-20

When I was about seven, for Christmas my folks got my sister and me a Nintendo. I was stoked. (Actually, once I overheard my dad say that they had gotten it for the big kid in the house, meaning Mom, but that’s another story for another time.) I had played Frogger and Space Invaders on an old Atari that my parents had, but this was the new, top of the line, state of the art video game system. Too cool for words.

I can remember spending hours playing Super Mario Brothers and Top Gun and a number of other games. Practice makes perfect, I was taught, so I sure practiced on that thing. Problem was, I kept getting interrupted by my parents for really trivial things. There’s nothing so annoying, you know, as when you are in the middle of something important like finally making it to World 8 on Mario and then to have your parents break your concentration for stupid stuff like, “Wash your hands, it’s time for dinner” or “Turn that off, it’s bed time,” or “C’mon, let’s go, we’re leaving for Grandma’s.” I mean, honestly! Can’t a guy kill goombas in peace?

Obviously, looking back, I can now see that my priorities may have been a little skewed when it came to that Nintendo. Those were just games, after all. Far more important was getting enough food and rest to stay healthy, and most especially spending time with my family.

Sometimes in some situations it can be awfully easy to get our priorities out of whack. Small things like video games or hobbies become far more important to us than they really are. The same truth applies when we talk about the kingdom of God. Altogether too often, we lose sight of where our real priorities should be. As an example, I share two stories from scripture, the first of which is our gospel lesson today.

As Jesus walked along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he called to four fishermen to come follow him. We are told that Simon Peter and Andrew left their fishing boats to follow him, and James and John stopped mending their nets and even left their father in the boat with hired hands to follow Jesus. Most striking about this story is that all four stopped what they were doing “immediately” and left after Jesus. They did not wait until they had finished hauling in their catch or fixing the last hole in their nets, they did it right away. They just got up and left.

We often think of these four as peasants; common laborers who had nothing to lose. However, the gospels record that Simon and Andrew owned a house, and we are told in this very story that James and John had hired hands. These were not poor men; on the contrary, they were well off and successful. It may not have been glamorous work, but it was paying off for them. Yet, they dropped everything to follow Jesus, even their families (remember Zebedee is left in the boat with the hired hands).

Contrast this to the rich young man in Mark 10 who wishes to know how to inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to do exactly what Simon, Andrew, James and John did: to leave everything, burn his bridges and follow Jesus. Instead of doing that, he instead goes away in distress, because he had much.

Jesus’ first four disciples had much, but they came. The difference is not how wealthy this man was, but what he was willing to give up in order to follow Jesus. While Jesus’ true disciples recognized how important it was to heed Jesus’ call, this rich young man did not; he was too busy trying to rescue the princess from King Koopa to hear the dinner bell.

Jesus calls us to follow, but we get distracted by those other things that keep us busy. That is why Paul writes that those who are married should be like those who are not or that those who are buying should be like those who have nothing: not because these things are bad, but because possessions, mourning, rejoicing, sometimes even family can distract us from God’s call. We are not asked to get rid of these things and live as monks in the wilderness, but we absolutely need to remember where our priorities are.

We should remember why it is that we call ourselves Christians: it is because Jesus is so important, and his message means so much to us that everything else is unimportant next to it; everything else becomes like a video game, and Jesus is calling us to dinner in the Kingdom of God.

It is because of Jesus that we have everything that distracts us; our family, jobs, money, even our time are all gifts from God. If it weren’t for Jesus and his message, we would have nothing, or if we did, it would all be meaningless. That is why these four men left their fishing boats, their nets, their hired help, even their families to follow Jesus: because it was worth it, because the Kingdom of God has come near and changed everything.

And so we come to the question of the day: what are you willing to give up to follow Jesus? An hour on Sunday morning? Five dollars in the offering plate every week? Or something more? Jesus doesn’t ask us to follow when it is convenient for us. When Jesus told those fishermen to “follow me,” Simon Peter didn’t reply, “I can follow you for an hour on weekends and maybe for 30 minutes on every other Tuesday.” John didn’t say, “How about if I give you a tenth of my weekly catch instead?” Andrew did not tell Jesus, “As long as you stay in and around Galilee, I can give you evenings, but if you head south to Jerusalem, I’ll have to catch up with you later.” James did not complain that, “my father needs me on the boat, but I’ll listen to you when you come to the lake shore.”

Being a Christian is not about being in a church on Sunday morning or giving money in the plate or even sitting on different committees. Being a Christians is about being changed by God’s presence, about burning with the Holy Spirit, about believing the good news that Jesus brings and repenting.

Repenting in this gospel passage is an ongoing, recurring process, not a one time event. The word translated as “repent” means to change one’s mind or one’s way of thinking, or to have a change of heart. We are called to a life of constant repentance, constant examination of our selves and our priorities to make sure that we are indeed following Jesus where he leads us.

But in this task of repentance, we do not say, “I can do better,” because then we still try to remain in control of our lives and we do not need a merciful God, just a patient one who will wait until we get it right. Instead, as we repent, we cry out, “I can’t do any better.” It is in this confession of inadequacy that we finally die to ourselves and realize how we are utterly dependent on God for salvation.

When we realize that we are dependent on God, then we are really Christians, then we are really ready to jump out of our fishing boats, to put down our Nintendo controllers and follow Christ immediately, because we know that without him, we can do nothing. And when we immediately give up what we have and follow, an amazing thing happens. The Holy Spirit works through us and we are able to accomplish works that are truly good because they do not come from us, but from God.

It is only when we die to ourselves, when we refuse to be distracted by the things of this life, that God is able to use us as God intends. And even to do this, we need God’s help. We are dependent on God to be dependent on God. To borrow from the Small Catechism, we need Jesus to bring us the good news constantly to daily drown the sinner and raise the saint to new life.

Being a Christian is about death. It is dying to our old lives, it is putting our priorities in order and with the help of God, getting out of our boats and following Christ, no matter where that will lead us. Being a Christian is not about wearing a cross or going to church or saying “God bless you” when someone sneezes. We do those things to help us stay focused on Christ as we follow. Being a Christian is about death, and that is the good news that Jesus brings; because in death, we are given new life. Amen.

Zombies

Delivered at Trinity Lutheran Church, Pottsville, PA. Baptism of Our Lord, Year B
Texts: Gen 1.1-5; Acts 19.1-7; Mk 1.4-11

When I first read the lesson from Acts for today, I could hardly believe what I was reading. It is a story we don’t expect to hear in the Bible, a story about zombies. Okay, so they’re not exactly the George Romero type, but in a sense these men that Paul finds in Ephesus really are dead men walking. Allow me to explain.

These men were disciples of John, and they had been baptized by him. However, as Paul explains to them, John’s was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; it was only an admission of guilt and sinfulness with the promise of forgiveness. To be baptized with John’s baptism was like going under the water, and not coming up again; it was a death to sin.

Jesus, too, was baptized with John’s baptism. Sinless Jesus, only son of the Living God, was baptized with John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. However, as we have just heard, when Jesus was baptized, something special happened. He went down into the water, and as he came up, the heavens were torn apart like a curtain, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him. God took John’s baptism and transformed it, made it into something different by entering into it and then injecting the Holy Spirit.

Recall that this is the same Holy Spirit that hovered over the formless and chaotic void at the beginning of creation. The Hebrew word for Spirit also means breath or breeze: it is the breath that God blew into the nostrils of the first human. By breathing the Holy Spirit into John’s baptism, God made it alive, made it more than just a bath in the river just as it made Adam more than just a lump of clay. Sinless Jesus died to sin in John’s baptism and was made alive again with the Holy Spirit.

So what does this mean for us? Without the Holy Spirit, we are like John’s disciples in Ephesus; we are zombies–walking dead, doomed to roam the earth filled with an insatiable hunger, not for brains, but for forgiveness, fullness, reconciliation to God; in short, for life.

But, because God has taken baptism and transformed it through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, and because it is into that baptism which we have been baptized, we are not the restless dead. Instead, we are the resurrected dead: we are whole, we are redeemed, we are claimed. Because we are baptized not into John’s baptism of death to sin but in Jesus baptism of resurrection, we are alive, more alive than we were before, because we have received the Holy Spirit, the breath of God which makes all the difference.

I also want to tell you about another transformation which God has enacted for us. At the end of Jesus’ life, he was beaten, humiliated, and executed like a criminal. At the moment of his death, Mark records, the curtain in the temple was torn in two, destroying the boundary between God and humankind, just like the heavens were at his baptism. Then, of course, three days later, Jesus rose from the dead. Just like John’s baptism, Jesus entered into death, and by doing so he changed it, transformed it into something else, something more. Like John’s baptism, death became no longer just death, but the transition between old life and new life.

Just like Jesus’ baptism changes us from the living dead into the resurrected dead through the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ death and resurrection changes us when we die from corpses into seeds awaiting new life, again through the Holy Spirit. This is why Baptism is so important for us as Christians, why it is so much more than just a public bath or a sprinkling of water. Thanks to God’s transformation of baptism from death into new life, our baptism promises us not only new life filled with the same Holy Spirit that hovered over the deep at the beginning of creation, but also resurrection with Christ at the Last Day. As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, we are baptized into Christ’s death, so that we may be raised to new life with him.

We are not just zombies, roaming the earth seeking forgiveness for the sins we continue to commit. Because we share this baptism with Jesus, we are new people, reborn of the Holy Spirit, with a new lease on life and a new mission: to walk as children of the light, to learn from Jesus and live in the Kingdom of Heaven while on Earth.

Now comes the dangerous part. Because we have been filled with the Holy Spirit, not only are we assured of God’s presence with us and God’s love for us, but we are set on fire by God to work for justice, peace, kindness, and equality in all things. Because God has broken into our world in Christ, we are no longer insulated from God, free to be complacent or quiet. The same Holy Spirit which fills us with new life burns within us to live!

The same Holy Spirit that stirred up the deep at the first moments of creation pushes us to participate in the ongoing work of creation. Like the wind, the Holy Spirit is restless and unpredictable; it rushes over us like a raging storm and blows us about in God’s world to bring about new life. This work is good, but it is not safe. It is dangerous. If we follow this holy wind where it blows us, we will certainly find ourselves, like Jesus, at the foot of a cross, for this world, though it is claimed by God, is not friendly to God. Jesus’ entire ministry was fueled by the Holy Spirit and aimed at bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth, and because God’s power was a threat to the powers of the world, he was killed. Because the Spirit fills us with the same message Jesus brought, we can expect the same treatment as he received; maybe not death, but we will certainly suffer, be humiliated, and maybe even be seen as criminals if we devote ourselves to God and do work of the Holy Spirit. But, we began this life transformed by Jesus’ baptism into something new, something better; and we can rest assured that when we come to the end of this life, we will join in Jesus’ death, which has also been transformed, and a new life again awaits us.

That is the hope we have in baptism. Jesus entered freely into John’s baptism, even though he had no sin to repent from, for our sake, so that we could receive with him the Holy Spirit, so that we could be changed and become truly alive, and so that we could freely do God’s work without having to fear the cross.

The Great and Terrible Day of the LORD

Delivered at Trinity Lutheran Church, Pottsville, PA, Proper 27, Year A
Texts: Amos 5.18-24; 1 Thess 4.13-18; Matt 25.1-13 

Normally, we speak of Jesus’ return with hope and joy, as well we should. We look forward to the Day of the Lord as a time of prosperity and happiness, when the sick will be healed, the dead raised, the hungry fed, the naked clothed, and the prisoners released. That is what we have been promised. Paul reminds us that on the Last Day, the Lord will come down from heaven and everyone, living and dead, will be raised up to join him. This will be a time healing and goodness. However, Amos warns us that the Day of the Lord has another side, a darker side. To see why the prophet was such a pessimist, first we have to understand what Amos saw in his world.

My home pastor once described Amos to me as the Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Old Testament, one who spoke up for the rights of the oppressed. Amos was a farmer from a little town in Judah, and God called him to prophesy to Israel in the north. When he got there, he saw a very religious people, a people who kept the word of God’s law to the letter… and no further. They worshipped God as they were commanded, but they were hypocrites. Israel at that time was experiencing unparalleled prosperity, and because of that, people had begun to trust more in their own wealth than in God’s promises, more in their own business practices than God’s commandments.

Now, everybody is conditioned to look out for number one, but God wanted these people to be different! When God handed down the Law through Moses, God intended for holiness and justice to be inseparable: as part of their worship, God’s people were expected to care for those who could not care for themselves.

Instead, the people of Israel had forgotten their obligations to the powerless among them, and thought that their religiosity would save them. But because they resisted God’s justice in their lives, Amos warned, even their worship was an abomination to God, because it made a mockery of God’s love and forgiveness. On the Day of the Lord God’s justice would roll down like water and surge around them like a flood, and nothing would stop it.

These rich and prosperous people, Amos promised, would be unpleasantly surprised when that day came. They were focusing entirely on themselves and their own gain, and what they had would be taken away and given to those who had nothing. They were simply not prepared for the Day of the Lord, instead, they were prepared only to make a profit and live comfortably.

This message still applies to us.  Much of our suffering comes from resisting God’s will in our lives. We chase after what we think will make us happy and avoid what we think will hurt us, but oftentimes these pursuits of ours are contrary to God’s will. Instead, God calls us to do things that may make us uncomfortable, and may even cause us pain, but will be to God’s glory and our benefit in the end; God calls us to forego our own pleasure for the sake of God’s work.

On the Day of the Lord, our wills will be brought into submission to God’s, and for those of us who place our own needs and desires ahead of God’s call, this will be a painful and sorrowful transition. However, as Christians, the Holy Spirit has already begun to change us from within by God’s grace. The more we listen for God’s call in our lives, the more we are open to God’s changing work within us, the more pain and sorrow we will save ourselves from on the Day of the Lord.

However, if we are like the Israelites of Amos’ time, we are in for an unpleasant surprise. When we reject God’s work in our lives, when we live only for ourselves, we harden our hearts and resist God’s changing power and we fail to prepare for God’s coming. On the Day of the Lord, God’s justice is coming.

We know that as Christians, we are still sinners, and God accepts us as we are, but that does not erase the fact that God calls us to be different. God calls us to do justice for the poor and powerless, and God also calls us to treat one another with justice and love. We will fail at this sometimes, but God calls us to keep trying, because we are God’s people, not the world’s people.

Jesus’ parable adds an element of urgency to this warning. Ten bridesmaids prepare for the groom’s coming, five bring extra oil and five do not. Five were prepared for the groom’s arrival and were allowed into the banquet, five were not prepared and were left outside in the dark. Be prepared, Jesus tells us, because when the groom comes, our time for preparation is up.

A wedding in Jesus’ time was a big affair, but unlike today when the ceremony is scheduled for a certain day and time, only the groom knew at what hour or what day he would arrive. When he arrived, he was obligated to send a rider ahead announcing his presence. Sometimes the wedding party waited days or even weeks for the groom to show up, sure of only one thing: that he would come.

These five foolish bridesmaids, then, had plenty of time to prepare and plenty of warning, and yet they were still not ready. The citizens of Israel waited for and expected the Day of the Lord, but they were not prepared. Can the same be said of us?

Jesus uses this parable to illustrate that we should be ready at all times, because we do not know when he will come again. 2000 years ago, when everyone expected Jesus to come back within their lifetimes, this was not as hard to remember. But today, we have lost this sense of urgency. Sure, we know that Jesus could come back tomorrow, but we also know he probably won’t. As a consequence, we are not too concerned with whether or not we are ready. “We’ve got time,” we say, “we can get things sorted out before it’s too late.”

Jesus urges us in this parable not to live like we have time, but to live like the end is near. Maybe Jesus won’t come back tomorrow, but tomorrow there may be a car accident, or a heart attack, or a tornado. We can never know how much time is left for us to prepare, and so we must make the most of what we have. Be prepared, Amos says, because the Day of the Lord will bring God’s flood of justice. Prepare now, Jesus tells us, because it is coming, and it could be here at any moment.

The Bible tells us what God wants: Micah 6:8 reminds us, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” We prepare for the Day of the Lord by living out God’s justice in our lives now. In order to have a good relationship with God, we must have good relationships with our brothers and sisters. “Whoever does not know love does not know God,” we read in 1 John, “Those who say, ‘I love God’ and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or a sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

This commandment means that we should not only care for the poor and needy around us, but also for one another. Where we have disagreements and arguments, God calls us to treat one another with love, to be reconciled to one another now while we still have a chance, because there may soon come a time when we no longer have time to make things right. Like the 5 wise bridesmaids, the time to buy our oil is now, not when the bridegroom is approaching.

My friends, now is the time to act. Today, as we gather here in church, we are aware that the end of the church year is approaching. Soon we will celebrate Christ’s arrival among us with the festival of Christmas. Just as we now know that Christmas will soon be here, and that nothing can stop or delay that event, we know that Christ too is coming, and nothing can stop or delay him. We have limited time to prepare for him to come. We can rest secure in the promise that we will not be left in the outer darkness on the Day of the Lord, because Jesus has promised us entry with his blood on the cross. But on that day, will we be rejoicing at his return, or lamenting that we are not prepared? Will we all be celebrating with light hearts, or will the grudges and the hurts that we carry with us keep us from enjoying the wedding banquet of the Son? When the flood of God’s justice crashes over us, will it break us against the rocks of our own regrets and shortcomings? We know that the day is surely coming, and Jesus warns that we cannot know when it will arrive, and so we must be prepared now.

We need not fear for our salvation, for God loves us and assures us that we are saved through the cross of Christ. But as we take comfort in that promise, let us not forget that there is yet work to do in this world, to live out God’s justice in our lives both to the poor and the oppressed, and to one another in this very church. We will sin, and we will hurt one another, but what makes us different from the world is that we have the love of God, and that love that enables us to be reconciled to one another as the world cannot reconcile, that love allows us to forgive one another as the world cannot forgive.

And so, as we prepare for the Day of the Lord and Christ’s return, let us abide in God’s love, and always be prepared for God’s love to change us. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit will keep us and guide us in that love and transform us by it so that when the Day of the Lord arrives, we will be among those rejoicing at the feast, not among those standing in the corner whose bitterness and regret prevents us from enjoying the celebration.

Let us ever abide in God’s love and as we abide in that love, let us be changed so completely by that love that we are not afraid of the pain and sorrow that may come from following God, because we have God’s promise to guide and comfort us. Let us use this time God has given us to buy our oil now, to make ourselves ready for the return of Christ, to prepare to meet our God. Let us now be reconciled to one another, let us worship God with our love for one another, let us fully rejoice in God’s promise by embracing one another in Christian love.

A Tale of Revenge (Except, Not)

Delivered at Trinity Lutheran Church, Pottsville, PA. Proper 19, Year A
Texts: Gen 50.15-21; Rom 14.1-12; Matt 18.21-35

Last week we heard Jesus tell us about how to handle conflict in the church. This week, he tells us about forgiveness. The two go hand in hand, since all to often conflict leads to hurt feelings. The text is not just about forgiveness, though, but revenge.

Revenge is one of those basic human emotions that everyone can understand and has experienced at one time or another. It comes from somewhere deep within us, almost an animal instinct. It is so universal that it finds its way into the themes of many of our cultural stories. We all know many classic stories about revenge: Edmond Dantes in “The Count of Monte Cristo,” Hamlet from Shakespeare’s play, even Inigo Montoya from “The Princess Bride.”

Today we are told the ending to what could have been the Bible’s classic revenge story: Joseph and his Brothers. The story goes that Joseph was his father’s favorite son, the elder boy of his favorite wife. He had 10 brothers older than him, but since their father Jacob liked Joseph best, they were always jealous of him. Jacob even made Joseph a special coat as further evidence of his favoritism. His brothers were so angry and jealous, that they plotted to kill him, but then decided just to sell him into slavery. After several years of slavery and prison, Joseph runs into a bit of good luck and winds up as the second-most-powerful man in Egypt during a famine, where his brothers must come to buy food. They don’t recognize him, but he knows them, and he tricks them a few times and makes them sweat before finally revealing himself to them and inviting them all to come live in Egypt with him.

Our story today takes place nearly 20 years later, after their father Jacob has died. In all that time, we find, this issue of revenge has still not been resolved. Even after so many years, Joseph’s brothers are afraid that he will seek his vengeance on them. Now, Joseph is the one character in the Bible, second only to Jesus, who would be totally justified in utterly destroying the lives of his adversaries because of what they put him through. He was taken from his home and family in shame, lost at least 5 years of his life to slavery and imprisonment, and got only hatred and betrayal from the people who were supposed to love him most. Instead, he not only welcomes them to his land in time of need, but also forgives them completely for what they have done to him. Joseph is the epitome of what Jesus was talking about in his parable about the master and his servants.

Only one question remains: why did Joseph wait so long to forgive? Why didn’t he just forgive them as soon as he saw them and put everything behind them? The answer lies in our reading today from Genesis. Joseph doesn’t forgive his brothers until 20-some-odd years later because the brothers never asked for forgiveness until then.

Jesus said in last week’s gospel that a member of the church who sins must sometimes be confronted about that sin. Today’s gospel talks about what happens next, if and when that person realizes their fault and asks for forgiveness. If that repentance never occurs, then by Jesus’ own words, “That one shall be like a Gentile or a tax-collector among you.” Repentance, asking for forgiveness, is the necessary first step to forgiveness. It is also the hardest. In some cases, it is clear who is at fault. In most, though, both parties believe that the other is the one who needs to ask for forgiveness.

Take the example of Joseph and his brothers. Clearly, the brothers were in the wrong here, having sold their younger brother into slavery and telling their father he was dead, right? Take a look at things from their side: Joseph was a spoiled little brat. Even though he was years younger than all of them, he received the favorite treatment from his father, but that was never enough for him. The Bible says that Joseph not only was sent by Jacob to spy on his brothers in the field and report when they were doing wrong, but he also had dreams in which he predicted that all his brothers and even his father and mother would bow before him. In a culture with a strong emphasis on honor, this was a great shame to all of them. To his brothers, they were totally justified in getting rid of this little upstart for the sake of family unity. For how awful he would have treated them his whole life, even though their crime was worse than his, he still owed them an apology.

Realizing that we ourselves have done something that we need to apologize for is a humbling experience. It knocks us off our throne of righteousness and forces us to realize that we are all fellow slaves, transgressors as much as victims. Jesus teaches that in order for reconciliation to take place, it is necessary for us to humble ourselves and repent to one another. Unless we do this, forgiveness can never occur.

Let us examine the first slave in Jesus’ parable. He was brought before his master and told that since he could not pay his impossibly large debt, say 10 million dollars, he would be sold along with his family and possessions to pay it. When he pleads with the master, the master is so moved with compassion that he does not give the slave a second chance, but completely cancels the debt altogether! The slave is no longer under any obligation to the master: he is free of debt and free from danger of being sold.

This slave then goes out and demands a much smaller sum, say $200, from his fellow slave. Because this first slave is so focused on himself and what he is owed, he cannot see the irony of his situation. When his fellow slave cannot pay, the first one has him thrown in prison until he can. This first slave, after having been cleared of a debt he could never pay if he worked his entire life, took vengeance on his fellow slave for a pitiful sum because of his own refusal to admit that he was no less a debtor than his fellow slave.

When the master hears about this, he becomes enraged and sentences the first slave not to prison, but to torture, until he should pay back his entire, impossibly huge debt. Here, it is important to point out why this first slave suffered: it was not because of his own debt to his master, which was forgiven, but because of his need for revenge against his fellow slave. Had he forgiven the debt as the other asked, they would both be free and happy; but, instead, he allowed his anger and his need for revenge to torture him, literally in this case, because he could not let go of his own resentment against his neighbor, who had done something petty to him.

I ask each of you, how many of you bear a grudge against somebody else that is imprisoning you and torturing you because you cannot let it go? Jesus tells us that we must be able to forget these petty debts in order to avoid the pain of torture. Some read this parable and think that the torture is in Hell, but I say that it is not: this torture is what we put ourselves through. When we are unable to forgive, we hold a grudge, one that never lets us forget the wrong that was done to us, one that never lets us put away anger and hurt and pain. Even though we have been freed of our debt of sin to God, we become slaves once again to the debt we feel we are owed. We imprison ourselves by our own unwillingness to be reconciled to one another.

God calls us to free ourselves and one another as God has already freed us. God wants us to live free, God has had compassion on us and forgiven us our impossibly large debts so that we may no longer live in fear of punishment or retribution from God, but we cannot be free unless we can learn to forgive one another and ourselves. So, Jesus says, do not think of the hundred denarii your neighbor owes you, but instead remember the ten thousand talents which you owed to God, but which God has forgiven you, never to require of you again. Remember that mercy and extend it to one another, so that we may all live in the freedom that God wants for us.