First Reading:
13Let mutual love
continue. 2Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,
for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing
it. 3Remember those who are in prison, as though you were
in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you
yourselves were being tortured. 4Let marriage be held in
honor by all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled; for God will
judge fornicators and adulterers. 5Keep your lives free
from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has
said, I will never leave you or forsake you.
6So we
can say with confidence, The Lord is my helper; I will not be
afraid. What can anyone do to me?
7Remember your
leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome
of their way of life, and imitate their faith. 8Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
15Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice
of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his
name. 16Do not neglect to do good and to share what you
have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Second Reading:
14On one occasion when Jesus was
going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the
sabbath, they were watching him closely.
7When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor,
he told them a parable. 8When you are
invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place
of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited
by your host; 9and the host who invited both of you may
come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and
then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest
place. 10But when you are invited, go and sit down at the
lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you,
‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the
presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11For all
who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves
will be exalted.
12He said also to the one who had
invited him, When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do
not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich
neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be
repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the
crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14And you will be
blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the
resurrection of the righteous.
Since I got back from vacation, I've been reading a book that caught
my eye about a year ago as it sat on a pastor friend's desk. It's
called Jim
and Casper Go to Church. The premise of the book is that a
guy named Jim and a guy named Casper go to a whole bunch of churches
together all around the country as an experiment to see what can be
learned about the Christian faith through the eyes of a
non-believer… you see, Jim's either a pastor or a church
consultant, I'm not really sure which but he's definitely a committed
Christian… Casper is an atheist. I'm a little over half way
through the book right now… and it's fascinating. I haven't
been to any of the churches that they talk about, but I've seen enough
of churches in general throughout the years to know that what they're
talking about is real. It's as much of their honest experience that
can be put down in writing and communicated in a book. Their basic
mode of operations was that they would go into a church and get the
full experience of being new there. If greeters reached out to shake
hands they would… if someone asked questions they would tell
the truth… if they need something, they would ask for it or
look to find it themselves, just kind of going with the flow. And
then, after they experienced what it was like to enter the building as
a new-comer, to find their way around and things like that, they would
sit down in the worship space where they would be able to see and
experience everything that went on. They would take notes on what
happened and rate the various aspects of the worship service on a
scale of one to five (which by the way goes entirely against the idea
of the song that we sang this morning to begin worship)… but
you have to remember that the whole reason they were doing this was to
learn something about the subjective experience of someone who entered
into the culture of the church when it was something they normally
wouldn't do… it took some guts from everyone involved to do
this little experiment. Now at least to me the ratings seemed like
they were really gut level reactions because they were based on things
like how authentic it felt, how moving it was, the overall sense of
the experience, the attention of the congregation, or the interactions
with people they encountered… and I guess that makes sense
because that's how people enter into a church, and it didn't take long
for Jim who's the Christian in this sort of odd couple
to
discover that he had a lot to learn from this experience…
The first church they went to was a church in California that has
thousands of members… they sat in a sanctuary that holds about
2500 people. They described the grounds of the church as somewhere
between a college campus and a theme park… a perfect testament
to Southern California with an outdoor café and seating, with palm
trees and landscaping so manicured it would make Martha Stewart
jealous.
They spent about 12 pages of the book talking about their
experience of this church and the thing that caught my attention, in
fact the reason I'm telling you this story is Casper the atheist's
feedback on the message of the sermon. Jim rated the sermon at least a
3.5. It was well delivered, it used some personal anecdotes and a
little bit of humor in it… it was better than many he'd heard. He
expected Casper to give it high marks… but Casper gave it a 2;
and this is what he had to say about why. He said there were 2500
people in the room and the pastor had only told them to believe in
Jesus… which no doubt is important for Christians. But Casper
continued that the pastor had missed telling them to follow what Jesus
said… or even better to act like him. He asked the question
what if the pastor had challenged everyone to go out and serve someone
else, to go out and make a difference today by giving maybe two hours
of time to a worthy effort… what kind of a difference would
that make in the community… and that's just in one day!
When I read that, I thought isn't it fascinating that an atheist,
who's named after a cartoon character, can go to one church service
and speak to the heart of the same thing that's in our scripture
lessons today… I mean what he wanted to hear from a sermon, and
what he wanted to see from Christians is parallel to what the letter
to the Hebrews says… Let love continue, don't neglect to show
hospitality to strangers…remember those who are in prison as
though you were in prison… Remember those who are being
tortured as though you yourselves were being tortured.
And for those
of us who are a little bit familiar with scripture, the Hebrews text
is just one example… there are all sorts of places in the bible
that point us toward identifying with people who are hurting, people
who are outcast, people who are in need, people who are poor…
people who for whatever reason have been knocked down low on the
ladder of life.
It's uncomfortable to think about identifying with those people.
(Whoever it is that you think of when you hear the term those
people.
) And it can even be scary to do because when and if we do
open ourselves up to see and to care about people in hard or hurtful
or lonely situations, we're immediately met by our own limitations. I
get these phone calls every now and again… sometimes to my
office here at the church, sometimes to my cell phone… most of
the time they're from people I don't know, but every once in a while
it's someone I do… usually they're in some sort of financial
need, but every once in a while it's a relational crisis and what I
find is that it's only very occasionally that I'm actually able to
meet the need they're asking me to meet. They say I can't make rent
this month… and when I ask how far off they are, they say I
need $1600 dollars
… I wish I could get them that kind of
money… but I can't. They say, Tell me what I can do to make
my girlfriend take me back.
And again, I wish there was easy way to
fix the situation, but I can't because there just isn't an easy
solution to a lot of the problems that we all face at one time or
another in our lives. But then I guess the call of a Christian isn't
to solve everyone's problems… a short walk through the right
part of any major city, would show us that we won't be able to even if
we try. But what we can do is to have compassion, and not just from
afar. We can identify and relate with people who are suffering,
relate with them as people… because they are children of God
just like the rest of us… And God loves us all.
Jesus told a parable because he saw people jockeying for the best seats in the house at the Pharisee's dinner party. And then he also gave some instruction to the host. In the parable he said if you want to be raised up, become low, choose the low seats because those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted. And when he instructed the host, he said perhaps the more important measure of a person… the same thing Casper wanted to hear… what we do with the seats we've been given.
Mrs. Judith
Peabody passed away last month at the age of 80… I had
never heard of her before someone sent me a link to a few articles in
the New
York Times that told about her life. Apparently she was well
connected through family ties and she was well off financially…
she lived on Fifth Avenue, she was always dressed to the nines in
designer labels… but what she was remembered for in the Times
wasn't her exalted place in Society, it wasn't even the money she
donated to all sorts of different organizations throughout the years,
though I get the impression that it was a substantial amount…
There were at least three articles spread out over a couple of weeks,
and all of them focused the face-to-face and hand-to-hand work she did
with people who were outcasts… in the mid 80's when there was
an incredible stigma associated with AIDS she showed up at the Gay
Men's Health Crisis center in New York… Let me quote from the
article, ‘Gay men with AIDS were the scourge of the
earth’ in the days when Mrs. Peabody first waded into the midst
of the epidemic… [and yet] ‘There was this constant with
her of consoling and holding people's hands.’ It may seem
far-fetched now to suggest that there was anything unusual about
clasping the hand of a person with AIDS. But… [at that time],
even some medical personnel were fearful of touch.
Mrs. Peabody seemed to grasp the root of the humility Jesus teaches in his parable. It doesn't do any good to grab for the best seats in the house because the best seats in the house don't mean much in and of themselves… what's important is what you do with the seat that you do have. She used hers to reach out to the down and out… so that by holding hands with the scourge of the earth, they might be lifted up.
According to today's scriptures the tasks of a Christian are to be humble and to do good: that's how to use our seats, wherever they may be: To identify with people in need. To relate with people who will never be able to repay your actions, to have compassion toward someone the world has forgotten: to make a difference in someone's life by treating them as a child of God — because God has made a difference in your life and mine by treating us like one! Thanks be to God. Amen.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on August 29, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
