Saturday, September 27, 2008

Parental Sour Grapes

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
September 28, 2008; 20th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 21, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32) – The word of the Lord came to me: What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, "The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge"? As I live, says the Lord God this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die...

(Matthew 21:23-32) -- When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus said to them, "I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" And they argued with one another, "If we say, `From heaven,' he will say to us, `Why then did you not believe him?' But if we say, `Of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet." So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.

"What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, `Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' He answered, `I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, `I go, sir'; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him."

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Right at the beginning of the Ten Commandments, we hear this:
I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and fourth generation of those who reject me.

Seven hundred years later, that conviction has come down to the generation of the prophet Ezekiel in the form of a folk idiom.

The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

Ezekiel speaks in the name of God and says, "No longer will you repeat this proverb. From now on, you are responsible for yourselves. You are not to carry the weight of your parents' guilt." It is a freeing and liberating word. But it is a freedom that must be claimed and lived into consciously.

An important task of our spiritual journey is to heal the inheritance of our past. We have to accept the ambiguity of the blessings and curses that have come to us from our ancestors. Then we have to define ourselves as separate beings, authentic and whole, yet connected to our past. I'd like for us to consider today's Gospel story as an illustration about how to do that.

The first part of the story shows Jesus challenging the chief priests and elders who have not been able become authentic and self-defining with respect to a part of their own past. They failed to endorse the popular prophet John the Baptist whom Herod has executed. "What do you think about John the Baptist?" Jesus asks them. Instead of telling Jesus what they think, they get anxious, and equivocate. Their response is reactive, not authentic. So Jesus doesn't waste his breath on them. They are not mature enough to handle his truth.

Then Jesus tells a story of two sons. A father says to each, "Son, go and work in the vineyard today." Now I'm going to read something into the story that is not there. I'm going to assume that this is a difficult father. I'm guessing that this father is someone who is dominating, controlling, maybe even abusive, at least from the perspective of his two sons. I think their reactions have something to do with their emotions about him.

Both sons are reactive. One appears compliant, "I go, sir," but then rebels in an unhealthy, passive aggressive way; he doesn't do what he said he would do. The other son reacts rebelliously, but then reconsiders, and does the responsible thing. He chooses to do what is right, despite his feelings about his father.

I saw a documentary film last week about a father and son. The film is about Haskell Wexler, two-time Academy Award winning cinematographer, 81 years old at the time of the documentary. It is filmed by his son Mark, who has had modest success as a photojournalist for the Smithsonian and for the Federal government. Father is a life-long outspoken liberal; son is a conservative, proud of his photo with George H.W. Bush, a souvenir of his photo-story about Air Force One.

It's hard to get a handle on why Mark is making a film about his father Haskell. Is it an attempt toward reconciliation, or is he documenting for the world to see what an SOB his father really is?

Haskell is bossy, intimidating, controlling – continually telling his son Mark how to place the camera, what scenes to choose, when to cut. These are orders. Most of the time Mark silently resists, staying behind the camera to exercise artistic control over the film he is making about his father. Over and over the son stands there, non-reactive, camera rolling, while the father goes off. "Maybe I would have been a better father if I knew what I know now when you were growing up so you wouldn't turn out to be such a mess," Haskell cackles with a scornful laugh. It's all recorded.

Mark is researching – exploring what makes his father the person he is. Mark goes back into their history. Mark's grandfather, Haskell's dad, was a successful electronics manufacturer. Haskell grew up in wealth and privilege during the depression. When Haskell wanted to become a film-maker, his father invested a million dollars into a failed startup. He told friends that Haskell's real work was turning money into excrement. Haskell managed to organize the workers at his father's plant into a union and led them in a strike.

Mark is researching – he visits his father's friends and colleages who have worked with him. They bring new perspectives, more views and angles. Many of them remark on Haskell's difficult personality, but they communicate respect, and sometimes even affection. It seems to help when Mark interviews Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas, the children of other famous, powerful fathers.

Still the battle of wills continues. Haskell wants to tell Mark something important, and calls him to his room. Mark suggests they film outside where the afternoon light overlooking San Francisco is perfect. "No," his father says, "We'll stay right here." "Dad, come outside for just a minute. It's a beautiful backdrop." The fight for control is excruciating. It seems to last forever. Both lose. Mark doesn't get his shot; Haskell doesn't tell his important message.

In a poignant moment, the crust breaks for just a bit. They visit Mark's mother, Haskell's second of four wives. They divorced after thirty-three years, punctuated by Haskell's many affairs. She is now living in the Alzheimer unit of a nursing home. Mark backs away, the camera still in range, as Haskell speaks softly to the silent woman. "We have secrets," he whispers to her. "Things no one else knows." "Yes," she says. Her only words during the encounter.

A learning moment seems to happen when Mark is trying to get a shot of his father swimming in the pool. His father instructs him how to frame the shot – to meet him half way, which Mark does, and it works. The sequence beautifully frames Haskell emerging from the water with a joyful smile.

The movie becomes a frank and courageous exploration of the most significant relationship in Mark Wexler's life. It is a tribute to his father; it is also brutally honest. But there's more. An additional trailer, not part of the film, records Haskell's watching the nearly finished first cut of the documentary. We see him laughing at his own arrogant hubris. We see him touched by the scene with his wife. When the video is over, Haskell is moved. He can't speak for a while. Then he says, in colorful language I won't use here, It's a great film; you are a fine film maker. Mark dissolves into weeping as their tears unite them in ties as deep as blood.

William Faulkner famously wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Part of our spiritual journey into wholeness and maturity is to make peace with our past. Part of that work is digging into our history and knowing our story and our ancestors' stories. We need to recognize how our lives have been profoundly shaped by our parents, and the sour grapes that are inevitably part of our inheritance. Then we need to stand alertly, courageously behind the camera, learning what we can learn. From a place of knowing, we can authentically choose who we will be. We can define ourselves consciously, rather than to continue living unconsciously in reaction to our past. We can shed the insecurities of childhood, and be authentic and whole adults.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why there is so much parental language in religious imagery. None of us had perfect fathers or perfect mothers. We all need more perfect love than we can possibly receive from the finite human beings who make up our family. So we speak of God the Father who comes to us with unconditional love and vitality. We speak of God the Son who comes to be with us to encourage and heal. We speak of Mother Church, Mother Earth, Mother Mary as the embracing love that nurtures us into the fullness of our being.

Our spiritual journey involves our liberation from the bondage of our past in order to be mature, freely responsible and whole in the present. Each of us is a child of God; unique and beloved. Each of us has been given a singular story and unique gifts that we may do our part to help Christ create a new future, redeeming in our time on the earth the little square inch we are given to tend, until creation is healed and reconciled, we are whole and real; and the Garden of Eden blooms anew.
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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

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Saturday, September 13, 2008

Blessings from the Poor

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
September 14, 2008; 18th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19, Year A
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 18:21-35) -- Peter came and said to Jesus, "Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

"For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, `Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.' And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, `Pay what you owe.' Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, `Have patience with me, and I will pay you.' But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, `You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?' And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."
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When Jesus began to tell this story, his listeners immediately recognized it as a story about their Messianic hopes. One of their treasured dreams was that when Messiah comes, all debts will be released. So when the king in this story forgives the enormous debt of his slave, all the listeners thought, "Aha! This is how it will be when Messiah comes." Jesus continues the story. The released slave leaves the king's court, and the listeners expect that he too will follow the lead of his master, extending generosity toward his debtors, on down the line until all the debtors are free. That's how it will be when Messiah comes. But that's not what happens. Instead, the whole story turns ugly.

At the very least it is a commentary about how fallen and corrupt our systems of power are. How difficult they are to change. How ultimately undependable they are. It is as if Jesus is saying, "Don't look in that direction for the Messiah. Don't look for the Kingdom of God to come from the top down." There is too much selfishness and greed for power built into the DNA of the wealthy and powerful.

And yet, something historic did happen to change the Roman Empire in the wake of Jesus' stories. In his book Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire Peter Brown has documented a great change in the Empire with the rise of Christianity. He documents how "suddenly, the poor were brought into 'ever-sharper focus.' The Church made visible what previously had been politically invisible." (quoted in Sojourners, Rose Marie Berger, June, 2008, p. 29)

Working from the bottom up, Christians changed an Empire. Early Christians told the stories of Jesus and recalled his message that whenever they fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick, visited the prisoner they were serving Christ himself. These Christians gave new value to the poor and served them as Christ. Bishops were charged to be "lovers of the poor." As the Church grew in influence, some of the values and focus of the Roman Empire changed.

Brown says that "the early church categorized the poor in two ways: those who were destitute and those who lived, as we would say, 'paycheck to paycheck.' In (the year) 380, St. John Chrysostom preached that most people in the Christian churches were of the second kind – a 'middling sort' of economic class, that could slide easily into destitution. With regard to charity, Chrysostom advocated liberality. 'When you see on earth a man who has encountered the shipwreck of poverty,' he preached, 'do not judge him, do not seek an account of his life, but free him from his misfortune.'"

That was the fourth century. Now shift forward 800 years, to the 12th century days of medieval Christianity. Ethicists in that day had a more discriminating debate. They asked the question about a hierarchy of need. Are some more deserving of charity than others?

In medieval days the focus was not so much on the individual but rather on the community. "Undeserving" poor were those who had family or a support network with the means to care for them. They weren't undeserving in a moral sense, but the responsibility fell to the family rather than the church's safety net, they reasoned. The "deserving" poor were those with no one to care for them. These belonged to the church, they said.

Every case was different. If a "paycheck-to-paycheck" family received a destitute member who would push the whole family into deeper poverty, the church understood that and accepted its responsibility to maintain that "middling sort" family. The church had to know its people.

But what if an unknown person came into the community asking for food or lodging? Whatever they needed was to be given, in moderation, if available. Strangers were given the benefit of the doubt without a lot of questions about merit.

And the church was charged "never to turn away the destitute, known or unknown, morally upright or not, in good times or bad. They were to be served as Christ, no matter the circumstance or the sacrifice required."

I don't know about you, but that makes me a little uncomfortable. I'm not that generous. I often ask questions to try to judge whether someone measures up to my standard of "deserving."

But then again, I haven't had much time to talk to people about their needy circumstances. I've been fairly preoccupied this week with other things. Things like parking lots. It caught my attention in a new way when I read about another church that has some parking lot problems. First Presbyterian in Dallas made the papers not long ago. It seems that they decided to respond to some new Dallas municipal regulations banning panhandling, restricting shopping carts on city streets, and limiting where and when food could be distributed to the hungry, by opening their parking lot every night as a safe place for homeless people to sleep, providing a security guard, portable toilets and cardboard boxes for pallets. Like us, they really got a lot of press, most of it negative. D-Magazine was not impressed.

But young people did seem impressed. Young people so often have an eye and a heart for the poor. We've seen that from some of our own. Mac Stephen returned from a University development project in Belize that St. Paul's helped underwrite last year, and Mac raised money for scholarships for children in St. Matthew's Anglican School in Pomona outside Dangriga. Emily Petrino is working right now to raise $16,000 for a bus for the children at Esaase Christian School in Ghana, West Africa where she spent three months working earlier this year. And Nick Klinger is home from his recent service in the Peace Corps in St. Lucia where he helped set up microfinance projects among the villagers. I'm so proud of these young people.

I got an email from Julie Schultz late Wednesday night asking me if St. Paul's would be doing something locally to join in a world wide prayer action to support the United Nations gathering on September 25 to review and renew commitments to achieve the Millennium Development Goals on behalf of the world's poor. "No," I answered. I've been too distracted or too preoccupied. It hadn't hit my radar. So, God bless Julie, she's going to help organize something so we can add our prayers and support for what might be the most important movement of our lifetime. St. John Chrysostom is blessing Julie's efforts, as well as Mac's and Emily's and Nick's.

But Jesus did not say "Blessed are those who care for the poor." Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor." It seemed important to Jesus for us to recognize that it is in the poor that we will see Jesus. The late Henri Nouwen asked, "How is it possible to keep caring for the poor when the poor only get poorer? How is it possible to keep nursing the sick when they are not getting better? How can I keep consoling the dying when their deaths only bring me more grief? The answer is that they all hold a blessing for me, a blessing that I need to receive. Ministry is, first of all, receiving God's blessing from those to whom we minister. What is this blessing? It is a glimpse of the face of God. Seeing God is what heaven is all about! We can see God in the face of Jesus, and we can see the face of Jesus in all those who need our care. ...Those who serve Jesus in the poor will be fed by him whom they serve." (Henri Nouwen, The Spiritual Life)

Maybe in our century we can change our world from the bottom up the way the early church changed the Roman Empire from the bottom up. To do so will mean seeing as Jesus has taught us to see, seeing the poor and responding generously. It will mean letting go of the distractions and preoccupations that so often block our eyes from the priorities of Jesus. It will mean aligning our priorities with the destitute and the "paycheck to paycheck" people; it will mean welcoming the stranger; it will mean accepting responsibility for those who have no one to care for them.

In a way, it is like a treasure hunt. Hunting for Jesus. "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?" "Where's Waldo?" "Where is Jesus?" Archbishop Oscar Romero's cry echoes resoundingly: "La gloria de Dios es el pobre – The glory of God is the poor." Jesus, and Jesus' blessing is among the poor. That's what Jesus taught us. The early church taught it to the Empire. The medieval church taught it to a dark age. Now it's our turn. The message and its responsibilities are in our hands. Will we be blessed by the poor?