23 October 2011

Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18
Psalm 1
1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
Matthew 22:34-46

Two psalms. First, the psalm appointed for this the 30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time. “Happy are they who delight in the law of the Lord . . . They are like trees planted by streams of water . . . with leaves that do not wither.” The Law of the Lord -- which Jesus, being tested by the Pharisees, summarizes for us: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Yes, sings the psalmist, “Happy are they who delight in the Law of the Lord.”

And a second psalm, singing also about the law – in which the psalmist sings:

Money makes the world go around

The world go around

The world go around

Money makes the world go around

It makes the world go 'round.

A mark, a yen, a buck, or a pound

A buck or a pound

A buck or a pound

Is all that makes the world go around,

That clinking clanking sound

Can make the world go 'round.

I’ll spare us all some embarrassment and let you just imagine Joel Grey’s bump and grind routine as he and the chorus of Cabaret intone a chant of Money, money, money, money, money, money, BANG!

Yes, according to this law, whether we be rich or poor or somewhere in between – forget about the God of Jesus – money is the god that truly occupies the human heart, the human soul, and the human mind. And forget about loving the neighbor; it is money we love – and money we love even more than ourselves – for in this culture, our very selves are defined by money. If we have money we worry about holding on to it – and of course we can never have enough; and if we don’t have it – well, that’s even worse – because then we have no claim to self-hood. Those who have lots of money are held in high esteem – witness the presidential candidates busily sucking up to Donald Trump – he with his piles of money is himself godlike, perceived to possess the power to make or to break American kingship. (How else than because of his money do think he gets by with that hair-do? Or should I say that “hair-don’t”?) And of course, in our culture, the one unforgiveable sin is to be bankrupt. We are, indeed, justified in the eyes of the world by our money and the things it buys. Our very currency testifies, ironically, to itself: In god we trust. As Martin Luther says in The Large Catechism: “A ‘god’ is the term for that to which we . . . look for all good and in which we . . . find refuge in all need.” And money and the things it buys, he continues, is the most common god on earth. “Those who have money and property feel secure, happy, and fearless, as if they were sitting in the midst of paradise. On the other hand, those who have nothing doubt and despair . . . we will find very few who are cheerful, who do not fret and complain, if they do not have money.”

“But Father Dr. Luther!!!” we squeal, “That’s how the world is!! It is money that makes the world go ‘round, and we can’t escape it!” And “yes,” the good pastor replies, “The desire for money clings and sticks to our nature all the way to the grave.” Even Luther is trapped by money; he himself complains about how little some people give to the churches, about the “louts and skinflints who declare that they can do without pastors and preachers,” who “blithely let parishes fall into decay and brazenly allow . . . pastors and preachers to suffer distress and hunger . . . there are only a few of us who have something, and we cannot help everyone.” And then, typically undeterred by political correctness (or much of anything else for that matter), Father Martin sums up by saying, “This is what one can expect of crazy Germans. We Germans have such disgraceful people among us and have to put up with them.” So much for Luther’s love of neighbor – especially when it comes to matters of money.

It is indeed as St. Paul says in Romans 7: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do the good I wish to do, but do the very thing I hate.” As we state in one of our brief orders for confession: “We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.” Indeed, one of the primary teachings of the Lutheran tradition is that we do not have complete, unfettered free will as some would have us imagine. We are, among other things, stuck on a carousel made to go ‘round by “A mark, a yen, a buck, or a pound,” and we can’t get off. We are enslaved by money and can’t free ourselves.

Back to Martin Luther and his catechisms. The arrangement of both The Small and The Large Catechism differs significantly from that of previous catechisms. Luther begins with the Ten Commandments, commandments that expand on the essence of the Law – to love God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind and the neighbor as one’s self. Luther makes clear in his explanation of the commandments that no one is able to comply with these, God’s commandments, in their totality – that if our status with God is to dependant on how well we follow the Law – we’re all cooked, toasted, burnt to a crisp, and setting off every smoke alarm in our vicinity. But then, following the Commandments – just as we’re ready to despair and pack our trunks for a one-way road trip to hell – Luther springs upon us the Baptismal Creed – the irrevocable promise of God’s love for us in creation, God’s love done for us in Christ Jesus, and God’s love poured out in the work of the Holy Spirit, who through the preaching and sacraments gives us trust in the Promise of God freely given in Christ Jesus.

This is the same movement from Law to the Promise that we hear in today’s Gospel as Jesus, after he has presented the Law, articulates for the Pharisees who the Christ is. “The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, till I put your enemies under your feet.” This is nothing less than pure promise – that we, enslaved by the things of this world; that we who are thereby the enemies of God, we, ourselves, will be put beneath the feet of Jesus; that we, with all those who daily, by what we have done and by what we have left undone, crucify Jesus, we do and will stand beneath Jesus’ feet as he hangs upon the cross and we will all hear the Word: Father, forgive them – they know not what they do. And so we do daily stand beneath the feet of Messiah, joined to his death, dead with him to the old ways; we are placed beneath the feet of Jesus who by his descent into hell, shatters, breaks apart, the “clinking, clanking,” enslaving chains of that false god, money; and on the third day we are resurrected with Messiah – his tomb and ours empty. Having been placed beneath the cross, we are reborn in the very image of the Messiah – Christ in God’s eyes, lovely to behold, living already, though not fully yet, new lives; freed from the not-very-merry money-go-round and given by God good things to do with our money, instead to use our money so that the God of Jesus Christ be proclaimed for us and for our neighbor, given by God good things to do with our money so that the neighbor be clothed, fed, educated, kept safe, be employed, have access to quality health care.

Once more from Luther’s Large Catechism. “ . . . because holiness has begun [in us] and is growing daily, we await the time when our flesh will be put to death, will be buried with all its uncleanness, and will come forth gloriously and arise to complete and perfect holiness in a new, eternal life.” And until then, “we wait in faith for this to be accomplished . . .” in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.