Practical Thanksgiving (Sermon)

 “Practical Thanksgiving”*

Ezekiel 34:11-24 and John 10:14-16

11/20/2

Reign of Christ Sunday

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

 

¹¹ The Lord God proclaims: I myself will search for my flock and seek them out. ¹² As a shepherd seeks out the flock when some in the flock have been scattered, so will I seek out my flock. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered during the time of clouds and thick darkness. ¹³ I will gather and lead them out from the countries and peoples, and I will bring them to their own fertile land. I will feed them on Israel’s highlands, along the riverbeds, and in all the inhabited places. ¹⁴ I will feed them in good pasture, and their sheepfold will be there, on Israel’s lofty highlands. On Israel’s highlands, they will lie down in a secure fold and feed on green pastures. ¹⁵ I myself will feed my flock and make them lie down. This is what the Lord God says.¹⁶ I will seek out the lost, bring back the strays, bind up the wounded, and strengthen the weak. But the fat and the strong I will destroy, because I will tend my sheep with justice.

¹⁷ As for you, my flock, the Lord God proclaims: I will judge between the rams and the bucks among the sheep and the goats. ¹⁸ Is feeding in good pasture or drinking clear water such a trivial thing that you should trample and muddy what is left with your feet?¹⁹ But now my flock must feed on what your feet have trampled and drink water that your feet have muddied.

²⁰ So the Lord God proclaims to them: I will judge between the fat and the lean sheep. ²¹ You shove with shoulder and flank, and with your horns you ram all the weak sheep until you’ve scattered them outside.²² But I will rescue my flock so that they will never again be prey. I will even judge between the sheep!²³ I will appoint for them a single shepherd, and he will feed them. My servant David will feed them. He will be their shepherd. ²⁴ I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David will be their prince. I, the Lord, have spoken.  (Ezekiel 34:11-24 – CEB)

 

¹⁴ “I am the good shepherd. I know my own sheep and they know me, ¹⁵ just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. I give up my life for the sheep.¹⁶ I have other sheep that don’t belong to this sheep pen. I must lead them too. They will listen to my voice and there will be one flock, with one shepherd. (John 10:14-16— CEB)

 

         Because of Psalm 23, when many of us hear the word shepherd, we conjure up images of being delivered from want and laid down in green pastures. Or, because of Christmas, we imagine “keeping watch over flocks by night.” Some historians tell us that ancient shepherds were, by and large, a grimy and bawdy lot. And surely among such ruffians were the ones Jesus called “hired hands,” men who were apt to abandon a flock in the face of threat.

         Old Testament professor Wil Gafney also reminds us that shepherds were businessmen who held comprehensive interest in their flocks. Sheep, says Gafney, were “mobile currency and a primary source of nutrition [which shepherds would] regularly breed, sell, and eat.”¹

         That got me thinking. The word “pastor” derives from the Latin word meaning “shepherd,” or “to feed.” And since folks like me are often referred to as shepherdsof a flock, I’m contemplating a new pastoral initiative. All this will require session approval, of course, but come January, some of you, my flock, I will pair up for breeding. Then I’ll designate others of you as having either too much or too little value to keep, and I’ll trailer you off to market to sell or trade away. Finally, some of you…well, a man’s got to eat, right?

If the session approved that “pastoral” initiative, how would it change your concept of shepherd? Ezekiel’s description of the way self-serving kings treated their subjects was pretty close to what I just described. And the prophets made it clear to everyone that Yahweh had no intention of getting fleeced like that.

         All you shepherds of Israel, you slaughter the lambs. You eat the fat. You clothe yourselves with wool, but you’re not feeding the sheep. You’re feeding yourselves!

         Ezekiel hammers away at those who abuse, ignore, scatter, and otherwise “consume” God’s beloved flock.

         While biblical scholars argue whether these violent shepherds are Israelite kings or foreign kings,² the point is that regardless of one’s nationality, or party, or office, or religion or lack thereof, leaders cannot lead by feeding themselves at the expense of those whom they lead. They cannot maintain credibility, respect, and authority by fouling the sheep’s pastures and waters with their own filthy feet.

         Over time, two ironies come to light. First, the sheep about whom Ezekiel speaks are never stronger than when, by a shepherd’s negligence, they find themselves lost, scattered, injured, and weak. Having nothing to lose, they’ll rise up, and they often prevail.

Second, when those sheep achieve freedom through the same violent means by which they were overcome and oppressed, they will, eventually, in spite of all good intentions, become abusive shepherds themselves.

         Through Ezekiel, God makes a new promise:

“I will feed [the sheep].”

“I will seek out the lost.”

“I will bring back the strays.”

“I will bind up the wounded.”

“I will strengthen the weak.”

“I will tend them with justice.”

         And there’s the difference: justice. In systems organized around perceived scarcity and greedy competition, true justice is the scarcest commodity. In such systems, justice gets reduced to getting even, to an-eye-for-an-eye retribution. That’s standard fare in the old realm; but Jesus—the Good Shepherd, the King of Kings—creates a new way of life. And he calls us to that life which isn’t only new and transformed, but one that becomes renewing and transforming for others. That’s what makes it truly just: The well-being of others becomes as important to us as our own well-being. As I’ve said to you before, my dad called this approach to life “practical thanksgiving.”

         Practical thanksgiving means living, intentionally, with and for the sake ofothers. What makes this way of life challenging is that it asks us to be continually attentive to, responsive to, and grateful for the particular person in our presence right now, while also living with, and for the sake of all people and all Creation—all that is with us today and all that is to come.

         The Greek word for these particular and ultimate concerns is eschaton, from which we get the word eschatology. Some Christian theology limits eschatology to doomsday discussions littered with citations from the book of Revelation and shouts of catastrophic Armageddon from fire-breathing preachers. And such individualistic theology tends to exile God to some far-off heaven. It ignores God’s innate presence in the Creation. It also tends to ignore and even excuse the crises of incivility and climate degradation we, right now, are imposing on future generations through fearful anger and entitled consumption. Ezekiel’s question is painfully relevant to this generation: “Is feeding in good pasture or drinking clear water such a trivial thing that you should trample and muddy what is left with your feet?” (Ezekiel 34:18)

A more holistic biblical eschatology opens the door to both the already and the not-yet Kingdom of God. Modeling a life of practical thanksgiving, Jesus shows us that the joys and sufferings of the moment are portals into that realm. So, as the Good Shepherd:

Jesus welcomes the stranger.

He feeds the hungry.

He restores the outcast to community.

He celebrates the beauty of the lilies of the field.

He embraces the God-revealing holiness of Creation in all of its fragility and all of its resilience.

And as his flock, we participate in all of those things with him

Through his own life, death, and resurrection, Jesus demonstrates what is true for all of us: We and all things “live and move and have our being” in God. (Acts 17:28) We and all things are loved eternally and equally by God. The faithful response to that love is to love as we are loved. And that takes more than our own wits and wills. To live with and for one another in lives of practical thanksgiving means committing ourselves to the reign of Christ in this world.

         St. Francis of Assisi took seriously Jesus’ call to live a life of practical thanksgiving. Among St. Francis’ many words of wisdom are these bits of advice: “Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible…[And anyone who] will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion,” said St. Francis, “will deal likewise with their fellow [human beings].”³

         Do you hear that blending of the particular and the ultimate? We touch eternity, and we live eschatologically by tending and feeding the people beside us right now, by caring for future generations and the future earth by committing ourselves to gratitude, generosity, and conservation today.

Living in the realm of Christ the King means so much more than walking on streets of gold with people who have “been good” and “done right.” It means, as the prophet Micah says, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God—today. It means, as Jesus says in his last words to Peter, “Feed my lambs…tend my sheep…feed my sheep.”

         God of boundless grace, help us to continue following your Good Shepherd into lives of practical thanksgiving, lives of gratitude, generosity, and responsibility, lives that reflect his trust in you, and his willingness to risk living peaceably with and for the sake of all whom you love.

Amen.

 

¹ Wil Gafney, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 4, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p. 316.

²Denise Dombkowski Hopkins, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 4, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011, p. 319.

³http://www.quotesdaddy.com/author/St.+Francis+of+Assisi

 

*This sermon is a re-work of my Reign of Christ sermon on November 24, 2019.

Worry and Wisdom (Sermon)

 “Worry and Wisdom”

Psalm 46 and Luke 21:5-19

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/13/22

 

¹ God is our refuge and strength,
    a very present help in trouble.
² Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
    though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,
³ though its waters roar and foam,
    though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

⁴ There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
    the holy habitation of the Most High.
⁵ God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
    God will help it when the morning dawns.
⁶ The nations are in an uproar; the kingdoms totter;
    he utters his voice; the earth melts.
⁷ The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge. 

⁸ Come, behold the works of the Lord;
    see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
⁹ He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
¹⁰ “Be still, and know that I am God!
    I am exalted among the nations;
    I am exalted in the earth.”
¹¹ The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge.

 (Psalm 46 – NRSV)

 

 

^5-6 One day people were standing around talking about the Temple, remarking how beautiful it was, the splendor of its stonework and memorial gifts. Jesus said, “All this you’re admiring so much—the time is coming when every stone in that building will end up in a heap of rubble.”

⁷ They asked him, “Teacher, when is this going to happen? What clue will we get that it’s about to take place?”

^8-9 He said, “Watch out for the doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities claiming, ‘I’m the One,’ or, ‘The end is near.’ Don’t fall for any of that. When you hear of wars and uprisings, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history and no sign of the end.”

^10-11 He went on, “Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Huge earthquakes will occur in various places. There will be famines. You’ll think at times that the very sky is falling.

^12-15 “But before any of this happens, they’ll arrest you, hunt you down, and drag you to court and jail. It will go from bad to worse, dog-eat-dog, everyone at your throat because you carry my name. You’ll end up on the witness stand, called to testify. Make up your mind right now not to worry about it. I’ll give you the words and wisdom that will reduce all your accusers to stammers and stutters.

^16-19 “You’ll even be turned in by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. Some of you will be killed. There’s no telling who will hate you because of me. Even so, every detail of your body and soul—even the hairs of your head!—is in my care; nothing of you will be lost. Staying with it—that’s what is required. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry; you’ll be saved. (Luke 21:5-19 — The Message)

 

 

         The date of Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels is generally set between 70CE and 80CE, with Matthew most likely being published first. Scholars assign those dates in part because of the apocalyptic references to Rome’s destruction of the temple in 70CE. That’s probably why Matthew and Luke contain more passages like the one we read today than other gospels do. Both evangelists carry fresh remembrances of an event that would have been, effectively, Jerusalem’s Blitzkrieg, Hiroshima, and 9/11. It would have brought prophets of doom out of the woodwork declaring God’s judgment and the end of the world.

         Having said that, Jesus’ ominous words seem like pretty safe prophecies. To “predict” such things is like the old priest Simeon telling Mary and Joseph that their beautiful baby boy, in addition to doing wonderful things, is going to break his mama’s heart. What child doesn’t do that at one point or another? Likewise, the broader reality in which we live always includes every scourge Jesus mentions—and more.

         Here’s the thing about worrisome times and the worrisome biblical texts that get lots of attention in the midst of them: When we read scripture faithfully, we read all of it in the context of our two essential affirmations—Incarnation and Resurrection.

          Jesus is born into this world, the mortal world with all of its wonders and beauties, and all of its woes and boils. And when we proclaim Jesus as the unique incarnation of God, we affirm God’s hands-on love for the entire Creation, because in creating all things, God reveals something of God’s own Self in and through everything that lives, moves, and has being. We can call that the general Incarnation—God’s self-revelation in and through the cosmos. And while, as Christians, we affirm Jesus as the unique and personal Incarnation of God, we also know that Jesus is no Santa Claus. He’s not a magic wand that can make all painful and destructive things go away. If he did, people and groups who cause pain and destruction wouldn’t so often use him to justify their actions.

As God’s Incarnate presence, as the Living Word, Jesus becomes the one through whom God reveals most personally the holy and steadfast energy of Resurrection. And Resurrection always arises out of suffering, out of injury to things that God creates and loves. That’s not to say that God wills suffering. It is to say that God does not leave any part of the Creation alone in our suffering. Incarnation and Resurrection proclaim God’s eternal presence in and redeeming love for all things—especially all that suffers and longs for wholeness.

         We all experience suffering. And a living faith in Christ only makes it more inevitable because Jesus, in loving hope, leads us into the places where people and the earth suffer the most. Even in God’s beloved Creation, says Jesus, some people will tear you down, like Rome did to the temple. “They’ll arrest you…and drag you to court and to jail…It will go from bad to worse…everyone at your throat because you carry my name.”

One way to deal with this is to hide behind the go to heaven when we diementality. And while I understand that, I also think that focusing on a post-mortem future disconnects us from the incarnate holiness and the resurrection-yielding suffering within and around us right now. That is the Christian hope into which Jesus calls us. St. Augustine described our here-and-now hope this way: “Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”

I like to imagine Augustine writing those words after reading Luke 21.

When Jesus promises “words and a wisdom” that will bamboozle opposition, just think about the ways that Jesus embodies that same word and wisdom. He gets angry at more than moneychangers. His entire ministry expresses the heartbroken anger of one who confronts injustice and suffering, and the loving wisdom of one who encourages people to live differently—indeed, who frees us to live according to the loving ways of justice and the redeeming means of non-violence. And when we choose to follow Jesus in lives of compassion and peacemaking, even in the face of opposition, that’s when we not only experience God’s realm of grace, we become signs of that realm for others. 

Through his life, Jesus demonstrates that the best way to embody a healthy and healing anger is not by blaming and shaming, but by courageously rising above, by trusting in the hopeful witnesses of Incarnation and Resurrection.

Thomas Merton gifted the world with a fierce voice for non-violence and peace. And he was fearless in offering himself as a sign of grace. When Merton considered establishing a peacemaking foundation in a developing country, a friend cautioned him, saying that he’d find himself opposed by both sides of that nation’s intense struggle between rival ideologies. Merton recognized the danger, and called it “necessarily a part of anything loving and useful I may do—because,” he said, “I cannot produce anything good if I identify myself too closely with either [side]. The vocation of a very good writer and spiritual [person] today lies with neither one or the other…but beyond both.” Then, quoting the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, Merton said, “What matters is not to line up with the winning side but to be a true and revolutionary poet.”¹

For our purposes, we can substitute the word disciple for poet. And Shane Claiborne can guide our understanding of “revolutionary.” In his book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, Claiborne shares the lament of a friend who felt “surrounded by unbelieving activists and inactive believers.”²Wondering how to follow Jesus in a world full of infection—that is, of greed, violence, racism, militarism, apathy, climate degradation, and so on—Claiborne remembered something a college professor said to him. “Don’t let the world steal your soul,” said the professor. “Being a Christian is about choosing Jesus and deciding to do something incredibly daring with your life.”³

I hear in that professor’s words the wise anger and the wise courage of Jesus who said, Follow me; and trust me. I will not leave you alone. When your back is against the wall, I will speak through you.

         That is the heart of today’s passage. When the world seems to be falling apart, the Christ gives us words and wisdom. We can trust that we are speaking the “words and wisdom” of Jesus when we speak and act in ways that build up rather tear down, when we have compassionate impatience with voices of violence and destruction.  

Today is Consecration Sunday, and yes, the session asks you to support the ministries of this church as generously as your means allow. And we’re called to commit more than finances. God calls us to commit our lives to trusting the presence, goodness, and grace of the Incarnate and Resurrected Christ who gives us wisdom, words, and courage to dare to live as signs of his redeeming love in and for the world.

May we all give and live from the Christ-heart within us.

 

¹All references to and quotations from Thomas Merton come from: A Year with Thomas Merton: Daily Meditations from His Journals. Selected and edited by Jonathan Montaldo. Harper One, 2004. P. 329.

²The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, by Shaine Claiborne. Zondervan, 2006 & 2016. p. 18.

Alive! (Sermon)

 “Alive!”

Deuteronomy 25:5-10 and Luke 20:27-38

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

11/6/22

 

5“When brothers reside together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in marriage and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, 6and the firstborn whom she bears shall succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.

7But if the man has no desire to marry his brother’s widow, then his brother’s widow shall go up to the elders at the gate and say, ‘My husband’s brother refuses to perpetuate his brother’s name in Israel; he will not perform the duty of a husband’s brother to me.’

8Then the elders of his town shall summon him and speak to him. If he persists, saying, ‘I have no desire to marry her,’ 9then his brother’s wife shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, pull his sandal off his foot, spit in his face, and declare, ‘This is what is done to the man who does not build up his brother’s house.’

10Throughout Israel his family shall be known as ‘the house of him whose sandal was pulled off.’ (Deuteronomy 25:5-10 – NRSV)

 

 

²⁷ Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him ²⁸ and asked him a question: “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers; the first married a woman and died childless; ³⁰ then the second ³¹ and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. ³² Finally the woman also died. ³³ In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage, ³⁵ but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. ³⁶ Indeed, they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection.³⁷ And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ³⁸ Now he is God not of the dead but of the living, for to him all of them are alive.” (Luke 20:27-38 — NRSV)

 

         The Sadducees accepted as scripture only the five books of the Torah—Genesis through Leviticus, all the books attributed to Moses. As such, they found no scriptural basis for any doctrine of the resurrection. So, their question to Jesus is both absurd and disrespectful—one woman getting tossed around from brother to brother. Seven times. You can almost see them winking at each other when they say, Now, whose wife would she be in “the resurrection”?

         Never one to take that kind of bait, Jesus says, in effect, Bless your hearts, fellas, but you’ve opened yourselves to such a limited part of God’s revelation that you have only the most limited understanding. As wonderful as marriage is, in the life to come, it won’t even occur to anyone. We’ll be beyond things like that. 

         Birth, death, marriage, vocation, illness, national identity, the humanexperience itself—none of these will be a part of the life to come.

Facing the great unknown of death, many people have tried to define and describe what may lie after it. Books like Proof of Heaven, Touching Heaven, and Heaven Is for Real all try to prove an afterlife. And all those “proofs” are probably more personally lucrative for the authors than generally convincing for readers. Please forgive my cynicism, but a subjective claim to know what lies beyond the comprehension of our human minds tends to lead to abuse because, when those unprovable claims become sources of certainty, wealth, and influence, the ones making the claims find themselves desperate to protect them. And all too often, that protection takes the form of fear, manipulation, or even physical violence.

         Now, before some of you tune me out, I fully understand that our human conversations about heaven are rooted in a genuine and passionate hope. Anyone who entertains the notion of heaven does so because they—because We—trust that God is real and that the end of this life is the beginning of something brand new.

And then Jesus goes and make that conversation even harder.

         Think about it: One of the things that fills this life with wonder and joy is the fact that, through our imperfect and impermanent bodies, we get to participate in God’s miracle of making new human lives. So, what kind of “life” is it when the relationships that create new life don’t exist?

One of the things that makes this life so precious is the fact that it does not last forever. So, what kind of “life” is it in which there is no death?

And it really doesn’t give us much to go on when Jesus says that in the life to come, we’ll be “like angels and…children of God.” What kind of alive-ness is that?

This brings us back to the fact that we do not and cannot know. All we can do is to have faith that something different and wonderful awaits us. And by definition, faith precludes objective knowing. As Paul says, faith is trusting in that which we cannot “already see.” (Romans 8:24-25, Hebrews 11:1) 

So, what now? When we recognize that the Sadducees are asking a question about something that they wouldn’t understand any better even if they actually believed it, what now? What do we do with this passage?

Because of the vast differences between the cultures of today and those of 2 and 3 thousand years ago, we face that same question with all biblical interpretation. What do we do with these ancient stories? What good are they to us today? And how is it that scriptures within the Jewish and Christian traditions have remained edifying and inspirational for more than 2 millennia?

The lectionary is a three-year cycle of texts for preaching. The cycle revolves around the three synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. For each Sunday there’s also a text from the Old Testament, a psalm, and an epistle. The Sunday school class I facilitate has been looking at lectionary texts for the last eleven years. That means we’ve gone through more than three cycles of the lectionary. And thatmeans that we’ve looked at some texts repeatedly—especially those for Christmas and Easter. It never ceases to amaze me how those same passages, not just after our multiple readings, but after 2000 years of reading, continue to speak. That, I tell everyone, is why we call scripture the “living Word.” These old, old texts written to people in situations unimaginably different from our own continue to have life, and to give life to those who pay attention to them.

One key to experiencing the new and renewing life of scripture is not to expect—and certainly not to force—a text to have a single meaning. When we allow scripture to have a life of its own, it never loses that life. It keeps encouraging, enlightening, challenging, confounding—it keeps speaking based on where we are in our lives.

It seems to me that this makes reading the Bible, especially reading it in community, a full-on sacrament—an experience of the living God.

Again, think about it: Long after those who first began sharing the memories, observations, and dreams that became the oral traditions, their stories remained alive. They got written down. They became the basis for spiritual reflection, teaching, and ritual. Those spiritual practices have never stopped evolving and becoming. That is to say, they’ve never stopped living.

You know, maybe, it is better to call life-after-death the after-life, to see it as the next step in discovering the full and true holiness of life in relation to the Creator. And to me, that suggests that we’re all in this life together to a degree that we just don’t comprehend right now.

The point of all this cryptic wondering is that whatever heaven is or isn’t, all we can do today is to trust that God is real, loving, and just. We can also trust that God’s redemptive power and intent so far exceed anything we can imagine that we recognize that even those whom we think are of little to no value–like women in the first century, or like “enemies” in any century–are part of the great Us that God sees and loves when God looks at you, and me, and all humankind.

The Sadducees wanted Jesus to sweat over one hypothetical woman. And she, even in her non-reality, has become uniquely alive. Through scripture, she still lives and changes lives because Jesus loves her no less than he loves the very real Sadducees who create her in their mocking foolishness. Indeed, because she represents all women who have no voice or identity apart from some husband or male relative, she is painfully real today in cultures where women have no rights, where men presume to control women’s thoughts, actions, and bodies.

It's a beautiful and breathtaking irony, but the Sadducees gave unwitting birth to a powerful woman who will never die. And if she continues to live and to change lives, how much more alive and transforming is the human life that is you?

Through faith in God, may we never give up on wonder, on change, on possibility.

May we never give up on life.

May we never give up on resurrection.