24 December 2002

Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-20

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Our modern day celebrations of Christmas, our modem day ways of making the birth of the Prince of Peace are, to say the least, incongruous. My American Heritage Dictionary defines incongruous as, "not in agreement with basic principles, not in keeping with what is considered correct or proper." Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to knock what we do in this season. I love Christmas. I like the decorations, the trees, the lights; I like the music, the foods, the ethnic customs; I enjoy Santa Claus, snowmen, and candles; and the splendor and pageantry of the Christ-mass - that's the crowning glory of it all. Church doesn't get much better than it does on Christmas Eve. But it's all a bit incongruous - but then again, the night of Christ's birth was filled with incongruities , with events and situations that were incongruous.

To get a grip on just how incongruous the events surrounding Jesus’ birth were, consider who this baby was supposed to the be: the Lord's Anointed, God-with-us, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. But just look at his parents: his mother is pregnant out of wedlock ... an unmarried, pregnant teen. And if you think the religious types are critical of that sort of thing now - it was way worse 2000 years ago – think Taliban; the penalty for sex outside of marriage - and pregnancy was a sure sign of sex, even back then -- was death by stoning. And both she and her companion Joseph - not her husband - were from the Galilee - a highly suspect region of Palestine, where everybody was intermarried with foreigners, heathens, pagans, you name it, and from the hick town of Nazareth - and there was a saying from Scripture that predated Christ's birth that said, in effect, that nothing good could come from Nazareth. How incongruous that Emmanuel, God with us, should be born to such folk as these.

And then this couple up and travel to Bethlehem from Nazareth - no easy journey. The road would lead this (ahem) unmarried couple through some of the most dangerous terrain in the country - not only was the road treacherous, but it was a route noted for being frequented by bandits, murderers and kidnappers. What sort of a yutz would expose a very pregnant woman to that sort of risk? The town of Bethlehem wasn't a whole lot better - sure it was the birthplace of King David - but still it was little more than a watering hole a little bit southeast of Jerusalem. Luke's gospel says there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the inn. The inn - as in there was probably only one inn there in the first place. You could be sure that any innkeeper who heard the Galilean accent would be immediately suspicious - Galilee was synonymous with trouble. Of course there was no room for them in the inn - even if it wasn't full. How incongruous that the newborn king be born into such circumstances as these.

"And the time came for Mary to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth." Now here's an incongruity for you - the Greek verb that was once translated to say that Mary wrapped the baby in swaddling clothes, the Greek verb now translated to say that Mary wrapped the infant in bands of cloth, is the same verb used to say that a body is wrapped in grave windings. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in grave windings. You hear the incongruity here? Especially since this isn't just any baby - but one who will bring light and life to all creation. And she laid him in a manger ... but this was not the nice wooden manger of our creche scenes - wood was scarce in that region and if you've been around farm animals much, you know that they tend to like chewing on wood. Luke uses a very special word here - phatne - a phatne was a feed-trough made from a flat slab of rock into which an oblong indentation had been carved. A phatne was a smaller version of the rock slab found in tombs - a slab of rock with an oblong indentation in which to place a dead body. And Mary wrapped her first-born son for death and laid him in a tomb - for there was no room for him . . . How incongruous that it was so for the one born that we no more may die, how incongruous that it was so for the one born to raise each child of earth.

And then there's the business of the shepherds. Even two-thousand years ago in the Near East, people made jokes about shepherds and nervous sheep - if you get my drift. There are plenty of writings from the time of Christ that testify to the social undesirability of shepherds. We can read descriptions of how they stunk - we can read descriptions of their purported irregular sexual pastimes - we can read descriptions of how they were, as a class, complete outsiders, rejects, and n'er-do-wells who were to be avoided and shunned at all costs. How incongruous that the outcast, stinking shepherds should hear the angels’ song before all others, that to them in the City of David, was born the Savior, the Messiah. How incongruous that it was they, and not the religious, that should be the first to behold the baby. How incongruous that they should be the first ones ordained - chosen by God - to go and tell the Good News that God had come with us to dwell.

And the incongruities continue in St. Matthew's Gospel when we hear that three pagan magi should be chosen to bow down and worship the child rather than the righteous ones of the day. This is made all the more incongruous since the righteous were to have no association with a magus - a magician -- and the death penalty is also decreed by scripture for magi. How contrary to scripture that God would choose these ones to behold the sun of righteousness.

The incongruities continue - even unto this night. For God has chosen you and me - deeply flawed sinners all of us - all of us unclean, according to scripture - God has chosen you and me to come and worship the Savior, Messiah. Christ is present, here, this night in his very essence, in the Holy Eucharist. The Prince of Peace is among us - even in a nation preparing for war. How incongruous.

The prophet Isaiah proclaimed: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; The Lord has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And Mary sang: God's mercy is given to God's people from generation to generation; God puts down the mighty and lifts those of low degree; God fills the hungry, and the rich are sent empty away. And there was one sent from God whose name was John; he came as a witness to testify to the light and he baptized the people with water, saying, one comes after me who will baptized you with the Holy Spirit.

I've rehearsed the following statistics about our world with you before; however, they bear repeating. They are based on the Human Development Report of the United Nations.

If we were to shrink the world's population to 100 people, with all existing ratios remaining the same, there would be on our planet 59 people from Asian, 15 from Europe, 9 from Central and South America, 11 people from Africa, and 6 people hailing from the United States and Canada. There would be 52 females and 48 males. Thirty people would be white and 70 would be people of color. Thirty would be Christian, and 70 would follow some other path. Thirty would be able to read, and 70 would not. And though we in the United States make up less than 6% of the world's population, we possess 59% of the world's wealth.

If we have enough food for the day, a roof over our heads - no matter how rudimentary, and a change of clothing - if we have just those things and nothing more, we are richer than 75% of the world's population. Hot water, indoor plumbing, a car, a television, a telephone, and a computer are extravagant luxuries in a world where this day 500 million people are close to death from starvation.

How then will we, the richest people that have walked the face of the earth, hear Isaiah when he says: The Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance from our God.

How then will we, the richest people that have ever walked the face of the earth, hear Mary who sings in her Magnificat: God puts down the mighty and lifts up the lowly; God fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty.

How shall we, the rich and the mighty, hear these words from God on this Third Sunday in Advent in the Year of Our Lord 2002 as we prepare to remember Our Lord's nativity, as we await Our Lord's return?

Historians tell us that the early Church experienced rapid-fire growth throughout the Roman Empire - not because of some extravagant evangelism program put together by high priced marketing consultants - not because of a glitzy Mediterranean-wide media campaign. Historians believe the early Church grew so rapidly because Christians took seriously that they had a responsibility to proclaim with their lives God's desire, expressed in Christ and Christ's disciples, that the hungry be filled, that the oppressed am imprisoned be set free, that the year of the Lord's favor was upon them. In the Roman world where 5% of the people were wealthy and the rest were either poor or slaves, the willingness of the Christians to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit those in prisons was nothing short of miraculous and without precedent.

Unfortunately it isn't quite the same today; American Christians give less than 3% of their income to the work of the church and that of charitable organizations - and that's not 3% to the church and 3% to charities - it's 3% to both combined.

What shall we say to all of this as we prepare to remember that the True Light has come into the world, that the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it? I suppose we can ask why we have to hear this gloomy stuff from the pulpit while we prepare to make merry; I suppose we can complain about all of this being a real downer when we should be getting into the holiday spirit. Or, we can ask what Advent and Christmas are all about for us who have been baptized with water and the Holy Spirit.

There was once a parent who sat down to talk to two of her three children right before Christmas. This parent explained to her two sons that their sister was showing promise of becoming an accomplished musician and that she needed an instrument of her own to practice on. The new trumpet that she would receive for Christmas was very, very expensive; neither of you boys, said the mother, will get anything nearly as expensive - in fact, you'll get a little less this year so we can afford your sister's gift. It doesn't mean, though, that your dad and I love you less - it just means that your sister needs a professional grade trumpet right now. This mother knew who her sons were, she knew the values that she and their dad had placed within their children - and she knew that these brothers would be happy for their sister - that the brothers would not be envious, that they would not feel slighted - that indeed, they would be happy to receive less so that their sister who had need would receive more.

We are making ready to proclaim that Christ has been born among us, that by his incarnation we have been reborn as brothers and sisters of Christ. We are making ready to remember that Christ is the True Light - and that by the Baptism of water and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, we have become sisters and brothers of that True Light - and that we are made to shine in the darkness.

We have been made to be like that mother's children, ready to do with less so that those who have need may have their needs met. Much more than that mother's children, we have been made to know that we will need to go away empty so that those who are hungry may be fed. We have received Christ's baptism, we have received Christ into our very bodies, so that we can lower our levels of consumption and lower our standard of living, doing with far less so that the lowly be lifted up.

This is what we reaffirm in Advent and this is what we proclaim at the Lord's birth. For the Spirit of the Lord God is upon us because the Lord has anointed us to bring good news to the poor and oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor to the poor and hungry. For God has looked upon us, God's servants, with favor - that we may proclaim through lives of sacrificial giving that the hungry will be fed, that the lowly will be lifted up. We have been baptized to testify to the light, to cry out to the waiting world, "Let us make present among us the way of the Lord."

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Sunday, 24 November 2002

Ezekiel 34.11–16
Psalm 95.1–7a
Ephesians 1.15–23
Matthew 25.31–46

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We know what a truly fulfilled life is all about. It’s about being the best. It’s about having the perfect body. It’s about youthful good looks. It’s about a healthy, clean complexion. It’s about how many sports you play, preferably lettering in all of them. It’s about our children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces all going to the best schools, beginning with preschool, advancing through a nice private day school, a fine middle school, and a prep school that will go far toward launching a student into a top flight college or university, culminating in a top-ten law or medical school. Life is all about driving a car that matters, having an address that will be recognized for its prestige, and being one whose portfolio is doing well but consists of just enough Enron shares to make for witty conversation at holiday-time cocktail parties. It is important to have one’s name attached to a few good works – in print, for all to see -- so one can be known as one who "gives back to the community." Life is also about having the right kind of friends – young, witty, good-looking, free-spending, and well-placed being the minimum requirements for all who apply. And we know too that all things must be in moderation – excesses of compassion, commitment, or belief remove us from the fold of those who are winners – and winning is everything, no matter who says otherwise. These are the United States, and our creed is "Survival of the fittest; kill or be killed; God bless America, we’re number one, the richest and the strongest and we’re going to stay that way, the rest of the world, especially Iraq, be damned."

The prophet Ezekiel declares: "Thus says the Lord God: I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak – but the fat and strong, I will destroy . . . I myself will judge . . . because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save MY flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged: and I will judge between sheep and sheep."

Make no mistake, says Jesus, because you were consumed with yourselves and your own needs, your getting and your having, your own success and your own nation, because you did not feed the hungry, because you did not open your doors and welcome in the foreign, the strange, and the different, because you did not attend to the thirsty, the sick, the imprisoned – because you did not love and care for the least, the last, the lost, and the lowly you have been judged and you are found guilty – and your reward for winning, your reward for your successes, your reward for being the biggest, the best, the strongest is, says Jesus, eternal punishment, eternal fire, eternal separation from all that is good and loving. Yes, we are the guilty goats, the fat sheep, the strong sheep – each and every one of us – and I am sorry to say, living in the era we do, living in the rich and powerful nation we do, we are arguably among the most guilty the world has ever known. May God have mercy upon us all.

Now, if you think what I’ve just said is grounds for outrage, I’ve got something even more outrageous to say. Though we are guilty, every one of us, guilty as all hell, miserable failures at loving the neighbor as we love ourselves, the sentence of everlasting nothingness has been commuted. God, like some demented, bleeding heart judge says, I’m letting you off the hook. In fact, I can’t any longer seem to see your guilt. Not only that, you look to me rather like the good sheep of my right hand – spotless and perfect, just and loving neighbors to the least of them, filled with mercy, kindness, peace, gentleness, generosity, humility.

Though we are rebellious, raunchy rascals – filled with self-centered, self-pleasing, self-justifying impulses, actions, and reactions from morn until night -- God, in God’s oddness, sees in each one of us, the face, the heart of Christ. The God who worded the whole universe into being and proclaimed it good, proclaims that those who are baptized into Christ will be the sheep at God’s right hand; those marked with the cross of Christ shall be inheritors of the everlasting realm prepared for them from the foundation of the world; those who are nourished by the body of Christ shall see Christ face to face.

But we need not wait for the end of days to behold the Christ the King in all his glory. It has been given to you the baptized, to you marked with the cross of Christ, to you nourished by the body and blood of Christ, it has been given to you to gaze upon the face of Christ each and every day in the here and the now. All you need do is open your eyes to the world around you. Open your eyes and you will see the face of Christ -- in the homeless who sleep in our courtyard at night, in the drug addicts who shoot up in the alley behind this building. To you it has been granted -- to behold Christ the King in the man who squats on the corner of Colfax and Logan holding up the sign that says quite candidly that he needs money for alcohol; to you it has been granted -- to behold the Christ in those whose minds are jumbled and clouded by chronic mental illness; to you it has been granted -- to behold the Christ in the faces of those who wheel their possessions along the street in shopping carts. You, nourished by Christ’s body and blood will gaze upon Christ when you see the prisoner being led away to serve the jail sentence that will not end until years after he has died. It is for you the baptized, you the blessed, you the people of God, to see Christ here and now in the least, the last, the lonely, the lost, and the most unlovely.

26^th Sunday after Pentecost – 17 November 2002
Zephaniah 1.7, 12–18
Psalm 90
1 Thessalonians 5.1–11
Matthew 25.14–30

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In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Talk about weeping and gnashing of teeth. Talk about gloom and deep darkness. It’s that time of year when our ministry budget for the next year is being put together. This task has been much, much more challenging this year than last. We have had to budget not only for the day-to-day costs of carrying out our ministry to city, neighborhood, and world, but we have also had to face the challenge of being good stewards of our soon-to-be 77-year-old building. Masonry, plaster, wiring, paint, restoration of stained glass, and increased handicapped accessibility are all going to call for a great deal of new money. And while we have a financial grant from the Colorado Historical Society to repair the top of the bell tower, and while we’ve applied for a grant to replace the catastrophically hazardous1925 wiring, we still must match these grants with our own funds. And there is much, much more to be done that these grants won’t begin to cover.

For many years, this congregation has operated with a substantial reserve fund. Money from the estates of deceased members and friends of St. Paul has been a substantial source of operating capital over the past years. To put the situation more bluntly, the dead have for quite some time now supported the ministry and mission of St. Paul through their wills. While these gifts have been a wonderful blessing, they have let us the living off the hook; they have relieved us the living from shouldering the day-to-day cost of our ministry. The reserve funds are now needed for the restoration and on-going care of this building, and so we can no longer rely on the dead to carry out a large portion of the daily mission and ministry of St. Paul Church. We the living will now have to be like most other faith communities and take on the sole responsibility for our day-to-day ministry and mission.

You can see now why I, along with other congregational leaders have been a bit on edge. I won’t speak for all of them, but I’ve had more than a few sleepless nights these last months – I’ve been gulping more antacids than usual – I’ve been sweating buckets – I’ve been having panic attacks that you can set your clock to.

But all that has changed. I am no longer worried; rather, I am excited, energized, and filled with new hope and enthusiasm. And no, we have not received another bequest – we have, rather, received a promise, an enduring promise, a promissory not that lasts forever.

It’s like this: There was a person who went on a journey and summoned his servants and entrusted his property to them. To each of them he gave an abundance, measured out in a unit of money called a "talent" – an amount of money that is, in today’s terms, equal to approximately $450,000, enough money, according to the standards of most of the world, for a whole lifetime. He entrusted five talents to one servant, two talents to another, one talent to yet another. In other words, each person received a super-abundance of money. When the master returned from his journey, the servant who had received five talents reported making five more talents – we’re not told exactly how the servant did this, but in Greek, the verb translated "to trade" gives us a clue – it’s a verb that can also mean "to minister," "to serve." Using the original five talents to serve and to minister, the first servant not only didn’t lose the original five talents, but doubled what was entrusted to her. The same for the servant given two talents. But the servant who was given one talent buried what he was given! Even though he was given more than enough for a lifetime, this servant lived in timidity and fear as if he had been given nothing. Because he lived without trust, because he feared the future, he would not, he could not invest his money in ministry, in service.

In the midst of my worry, I heard all of this and I realized who we are in this story – who God sees us to be in this story. First, we are those who have received – all of us -- a superabundance of God’s gifts. Not in equal measure, to be sure, but a superabundance, just the same. Second, we are not the ones who view our abundance in fear and timidity -- hoarding, burying, stashing our resources under the mattress while worrying that there will not be enough for ourselves, let alone anyone else. Rather – we are the ones who put our abundance to work in ministry, in service to others. And the result of living as God has made us to be is that there is always super-abundance, there is always more than enough. And so I am not afraid of what is to come. Whether we have two talents or five or one, we the baptized people of the promise have been reborn to boldly invest in the ministry and service that has been entrusted to us – and there will always be a superabundance of God’s riches in our lives.

Throughout the past two months, the staff, the ministry chairs, the finance committee, the treasurer, committee members, and the congregational council all have been crunching numbers this way and that in an attempt to be both faithful to our mission and responsible in our use of money. And at last we have the final figure for our operating budge for 2003: in round numbers, $421,000. That’s what it will cost us in the next year to merely maintain our ministry here in Downtown Denver.

$421,000. Let me put that number in perspective. We have approximately 170 pledging units – by that I mean we have 170 households – some single, some consisting of several people – that in the last year regularly contributed to the ministry and mission of this congregation. If we divided our budget of $421,000 by these 170 households, we would come out with a round figure of $2,500. If all 170 households each contributed $2500, we would easily meet our budget of $421,000. But of course, not everyone has the means to contribute $2500 in the next year. However, others of us do have the means to contribute that amount over 12 months. And still others of us, perhaps a majority of us, have the means not only to contribute $2500, but the means to contribute much more, so as to shoulder the load for those who don’t have the economic flexibility or freedom to contribute $2500 in 2003.

The leaders of St. Paul have also heard God’s promise in their lives. Many are ready to do something they’ve not done before – ready to tithe to the ministry of St. Paul, that is, ready to invest 10% of their income in ministry, in service. And I promise before you now to invest 20% of my base salary to our shared ministry. And I am asking every one of the members and friends of St. Paul to prayerfully – and I want to emphasize prayerfully – to prayerfully consider investing at least 10% of their income in our shared mission. I’m also asking that beyond investing in the day to day operational budget of St. Paul that everyone on an on-going, yearly basis prayerfully consider a second pledge to the building and maintenance fund so that we may continue to go forward in restoring and maintaining the the building our spiritually forebears entrusted to us. For my part, beyond the $9200 that I covenant to give to our shared ministry next year, I will covenant another $1000 to the building fund.

Each and every one of us has received not only an abundance of gifts from God, we have received a spirit of trust, of joy, a spirit of striding boldly and fearlessly into the future. Not only will we meet our 2003 budget with our giving covenants, we will exceed it and we will provide for the restoration and upkeep of what we have received. The apostle Paul, whose name this community bears, proclaims the Gospel promise this way: "God will provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work. God who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your benevolence. You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God."

And Christ the Lord who gives us bread and wine, the strength of his own body and blood, shall make it so.