1 Thessalonians 2: 9-13
Psalm 107
Matthew 23: 1-12

Some time ago a reporter for the United Church Observer was eating with a colleague from another church’s magazine at a meeting of the General Council. The person who was the Moderator at the time approached carrying his tray and the United Church reporter greeted him by name and introduced him to the other journalist. After the Moderator walked away and joined another table the other reporter, clearly from a more formal denomination, was upset and managed to sputter, “You called him by his first name and he was carrying his own tray!” I suppose that no one in the United Church ever considered the moderator needing an assistant to carry his tray. I suspect the reporter and the moderator had been on a first name basis before the one became moderator and neither saw any reason to change their form of greeting.

I suspect that these days most bishops carry their own trays at cafeteria style meals and carry their own plate when choosing their own food at buffets like everyone else.

A few years ago I accompanied my mother to a formal dinner in honour of donors to a certain organization. After we had arrived I realized that, apart from the head table, the choice seats near the front were reserved for the ones who gave the most money - hearing or mobility was not considered.

The passage from Matthew for today contains some fairly harsh criticism of the religious elites by Jesus. He has a number of criticisms - they expect to have hte seats of honour at social functions, they make life harder for others, they like to be greeted with respect and honour, want to be called “honoured teacher” and they make a great show of their devotion with ostentatious phylacteries and long prayer shawl tassels.

When the gospel passage was being read you may have wondered, “What on earth is a phylactery? I thought they were extinct.” “Would I know one if I met it on the street?” “Are they animal, vegetable, or mineral?” We might have these or other queeries if we were playing a game of “20 Questions”!

Pterodactyls are extinct dinosaurs while phylacteries are used by Jewish people in their personal daily prayer. In the old library at Atlantic School of Theology, when I was a student there, was a display case near the main desk and in it was a set of what looked to be very, very old phylacteries and an equally ancient prayer shawl. As I remember them, both had seen better days! The shawl would have once been white with blue stripes and had a tassel at each corner. Such shawls are worn over the shoulders and the tassels are supposed to remind the one praying to observe the commandments. Phylacteries are small leather boxes with leather straps attached. The boxes contain certain scripture verses and the straps are bound around the arm and the forehead of the one who is praying and attached with a specific kind of knot. As far as I know it was only men who wore such items at worship though some branches of Judaism might have changed this since the time of Jesus. The verses in these boxes come from the first books of what we call the Old Testament and remind the faithful of the basics of their faith.

Because this is the internet age and you can buy almost anything online, I was able to do some research as to the cost of these items. What would a set of them set you back these days? Depending on the quality you require, they cost between $270 and $800 on one internet dealer in Jewish goods! Why so much? I gather there are very strict rules about the manufacture of these items, sometimes requiring a single piece of leather for the box. The scripture verses are hand lettered in Hebrew on parchment and it takes hours and hours to make a set. In addition, left handed and right handed one are different.

On the other hand, a set of play ones can be found on amazon.ca for about $55! I suppose this is so your little boy can play at praying like his father without using his dad’s, which would be completely inappropriate to the Jewish people who find these items essential to their prayer life. Indeed the description notes that these are not “correct” and should not be used in place of real ones!

This is a tricky passage for us to look at because it would be all too easy for us to say, “Jesus was against the Jewish manner of prayer and devotion and brought in a new and better way ”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus remained a faithful Jew his entire life. Jesus’ objection in this and all instances seems to be on abuses of the practices or on practices which had “lost something in translation”.

It seems that what Jesus was against was actually excessive pride; the kind of pride by which some elevated themselves at the expense of others. This was the kind of pride whereby some people felt they deserved more honour and privilege than the average child of Israel.

In another passage Jesus criticizes some who would use their religious devotion as a way of getting out of looking after parents or other relatives in need.

I was reading yesterday that Jesus aimed this criticism at the rich and privileged but that the criticism did not, and could not, apply to the poor and marginalized. It seems that he lobbed his heaviest criticism at those who benefited from the rules they imposed on others to their detriment. Many of these rules made life for the poor very difficult.

As Christians, we need to look at what passages such as this mean for us, not at what they mean for others. We need to use these words as a lens through which we view our own community and our own devotion.

Questions we could be asking ourselves are Why are we here as a community of faith? Are we here for our own benefit? What difference can we make in this community and the world. As a church and charity we enjoy some significant tax breaks, partially because we are regarded as existing for “public benefit”.

The sad reality is that many churches come together for the purpose of assuring one another of God’s love , BUT there it stops, As a church we need to go the sedond step - we need to show in word and deed this love to the wider community.

Sadly churches often do not do as good a job serving the community as “service clubs” do - sadly some churches are more about club than service. Are we a club church in it for only what we receive in terms of honour and privilege, or are we a serving church? A great deal of this can be answered by our activities, the use and purpose of our building and our budget.

As we come into the time of setting budgets we should be looking at how we canb make a difference in the community AS WELL AS being a community of faith who worships and works together and forms its young in the way of Jesus.

Faith community is about much more than one hour a week; This hour together is only the beginning; it is the bread for the journey of the rest of our lives, the rest of our Christian commitment.

In a world of scarce dollars and small congregations we certainly cannot do everything we might like to, but not everything takes bags of money; some things take time, and intentionality. As a faith community and as people of faith, we need to ask the question, “What does Jesus call this community and its members to do and be in this community and in the world in the coming months. In what ways can we support the wider proclamation of the gospel, here and around the world? In what waysw can we show our care for others? We need to talk about the questions and step forward in faith - as a community for the wider community.

Amen.

Joshua 24: 1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78
Matthew 25: 1-13

Decide and Prepare!

Many country fairs have competitions for vegetables, baking and handcrafts. You can take your tastiest tomatoes, best biscuits, your softest sweater and your perfect pictures and have them judged in the hopes of winning a red, blue or white ribbon and a small monetary prize.

In my mother’s recipe book is a raisin pie that is named, “$5 Pie”, not because that it what is costs to make, but because that is what it won years ago at just such a fair.

After five years of seeing other people win prizes, two years ago I decided to enter some items in a couple of categories in the handcraft competitions at the Dundas Plowing Match and Agricultural Fair. I knew that my pieces were just as nice as the ones I had seen adorned with red ribbons. I won a ribbon for each of my three entries. Several months before this year’s competition, I decided what I was gong to enter, even asking to borrow something I had made and given as a gift. Even though there was only one category for cross-stitch, I had even figured out a way to enter two cross stitches. There was a category for any “item with a Christmas theme” and since my cross-stitched throw had a Santa and Reindeer, it clearly qualified. I chose a teddy bear and kitten piece for the cross-stitch category. I had great plans for the ten or so dollars I would win! (Remember what I said about small prizes!)

Then, for some reason (I blame general busyness and the stress of planning a move within a month) and I got the drop off deadline wrong. When I arrived with my exhibits, the judging was over and I was out of luck. I was too late! I had missed the boat and I went home with my exhibits and NO RIBBONS and no money! My friend may enter the afghan next year as I don’t think there is a residency requirement, but that’s months away.

One of the things I do every Tuesday if I can at all is to participate in a “Google Hangout” with a group of colleagues. A “Google Hangout” is an internet video chat. We discuss the Lectionary readings for the upcoming Sunday and various ministry related issues, A couple of these colleagues were neighbouring clergy in PEI, and the rest were or are theological students in the Distance Program at Atlantic School of Theology and classmates of one or two of those neighbours.

This past week, we had a very spirited discussion and much more disagreement than is usual for us.

You see, the idea of permanently shutting the door in the faces of the five bridesmaids did not sit well with at least two of my friends. One of my friends thought that the five wise women could have shared some of their oil or that they should have kept only one lamp burning until the groom arrived and then ignited all ten! The discussion became quite heated.

I think one is preaching on Joshua and another is doing what we preachers call, “preaching against the text”, in other words saying, “this passage wrong; Jesus would never have said this and this is why I think that way”.

While I might “preach against the text” with respect to other passages, I advocated for a reading which respected the text but respected the limits of the story. As a parable type story I think this passage has a specific point and we can’t keep picking at it or it does indeed stop being “Good News”.

In this passage the “lock-out” of the foolish bridesmaids is the result of what we could call, the “law of inevitable consequences.” If you play with fire, there is a high probability that you will get burned, no matter how good the rest of your life is.

There does not seem to be any extrinsic reason that the five “foolish” bridesmaids did not bring extra oil. They seem to have the funds to go to the store and buy more! We don’t k now why the groom, was late but it happens with grooms! In this story the bridesmaids had one function at this point in the wedding celebrations, which was to light the way for the bridal party. Simple. Easy. Not complicated. What they did not envision was a delay.

When I was doing my Summer Internship in Thunder Bay we advised all the members of the bridal party to plan for a train! How long a delay could a train cause?

The main line goes through the city near the church and if you were on the other side of the tracks when the train went by, you had to wait; who’s gonna argue with a freight train! The trains, while limited to a certain number of cars, went very slowly within the city limits.

Since we sometimes had several weddings on a summer Saturday afternoon, we too needed to follow a schedule.

It is the realty that despite our carefully planned agenda and our plans, we are wise to have a contingency plan, we need to be prepared for the unexpected. The foolish bridesmaids did not expect what the wise ones anticipated: a simple delay. It happens with weddings! It wasn’t a complicated problem! As far as we know the groom did not get in an accident and have to go to the local Emergency Room. He was just late!

We know that many bridal parties seem to have a clock that is quite different than those of thier guests. How many of us have been left twiddling our thumbs at a reception hall, waiting for the bridal party to return from having their pictures taken. .

I did a simple outdoor wedding a few years ago for a couple living out of province. It took place at Sally’s Beach Provincial Park, a day use picnic ground. Everything went according to plan, until the pictures were to be taken. Just as the bridal party was getting ready to go down to the beach for their pictures a stretch SUV limousine arrived and out came another bridal party and they took over the beach. I found out later that my bride and groom ended up having to have their pictures taken another day, thanks to the photographer making herself available.

I was watching an episode of Judge July one day, and a bride was suing a bakery for the inadequate compensation je gave her when he ruined her wedding AND honeymoon because he made an unauthorized substitution of the flowers she wanted on her wedding cake! They must choose the most outlandish cases for these tv shows! Really!

We all know that life can deal us blows and delays which are truly difficult; the unforseen events cause sometimes necessitate our completely reassessing our schedule and pre-determined goals.

The question for us is: Have be brought enough oil to last, or are our plans so set that we will find ourselves cold and in the dark when things don’t go according to plan. Fill up your jug and be ready for the delays that will come - sooner or later.

Amen!

1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11
Psalm 123
Matthew 25: 14-30

Thieves and Gnashing Teeth

Sometimes you read a story and think, “Something must be wrong here”! Occasionally there is a genuine misprint or typo and when you find out what was intended by the author all problems disappear. This was a week of Remembrance Day events and Remembrance Day tweets. Earlier this week a colleague tweeted that 2014 was the hundredth anniversary of the end of WW1. I responded with the word ‘beginning”, and he replied with, “I knew that but typed the wrong thing!” Sometimes, one word makes all the difference!

Today’s Gospel passage seems all wrong. When Jesus told this story, the hearers would know, by the way it was structured that the third servant was supposed to be the hero, and be rewarded, but this story blows those assumptions out of the water! Landing in the outer darkness, is certainly no reward. There is precious little joy out there!

Jesus’ original hearers might well have gone home wondering what Jesus meant by that tale.

What is it about?

A lot of people get hung up on the word “talent”. Its too bad the currency in Palestine was called a talent, and, in English, we call abilities and gifts talents. It can be confusing and misleading. The amounts given to the slaves were absolutely enormous, indeed, ginormous! (If that is even a real word)! Apparently five talents would equal 100 years wages for a day labourer!

The message of this passage could be, “use your gifts, or your resources, and make them grow”, or else!

That is where the problem lies for me. At first glance it was the “or else” part I had problems with but as I delved into it, I began to have problems with the whole thing.

pause

Last week we talked about preparing. Perhaps, this week is geting more specific about what kind of preparations need to be made.

I have a good friend who has an extreme dislike for this passage. I called her earlier in the week and told her that I was preaching on her “fav-or-ite” passage and I intended that she would be able to tell from my intonation that I meant the opposite of what I had said. Without any further explanation she said, “It must be ..... or ...... and she was right! She reminded me that she has had problems with these passages since she was a teenager and that she frustrated her minister by asking him difficult questions he did not want to answer!

One of her problems is: “When someone has little to start with and little ability how are we expect the impossible from them and then condemn them for failure?” Once again my friend and I had an extensive conversation about this passage.

As we approach this story there are a few things we should know; things which everyone in the audience would assume.

One is the concept of honour in a highly class conscious culture. .

Occasionally the news carries the story of a murder which, when investigated, turns out to be what is called an “honour killing”. A family member, or number of family members, are killed to preserve the family honour. You may remember such a case in Ontario about five years ago where four members of the same family were murdered for bringing dishonour to the family. Adultery, having premarital relations, having a mind of your own, and not agreeing to an arranged marriage seem to be common reason for such killings in many cultures. .

People of wealth ans status were careful to protect the family honour but could have their slaves or servants to their bidding without bringing shame to the family. Lower class people apparently had no honour and did not have to worry about the family name.

In the Palestine of Jesus day, apparently an honourable man did not become involved in such dirty activities as currency exchange, lending at interest and expropriation of property when farmers could not pay the exorbitant interest rates that were charged, but they had no problem being the beneficiaries of such activities! They assigned these tasks to their servants, who were lower class and, as I said, had no honour to begin with.

The temple was firmly enmeshed in this system or profit from trading and currency exchange.. You will all remember Jesus casting the moneychangers out of the temple as he overturned their tables. The rich people, and some of them were priests, made a great deal of money out of the selling of approved sacrifices and exchanging Roman coins for ones that could be used in the temple. I suspect it was their servants who sat at the tables and handled the business but it was the elites who profited.

In this passage the land-owner, well off and able to travel, assigned to his servants large amounts of money to handle for him. The first two, very skilled, servants traded and did what was necessary to double the master’s money. Assuming a relatively short absence, the interest rate or profit margin, would have to have been very high, to have doubled the original investment. The third, less skilled, was unwilling to take these kinds of risks. Was he afraid of losing his master’s money. He tells the master, right to his face that he is afraid of him because he is ruthless in his dealings - and profits from the work of others. While it was indeed true that most well off people did not work, making all their money from the labour of others, few lower class people would dare voice this out loud in their presence.

There are a couple of popular shows on TV that are about small entrepreneurs trying to get money from people with money in order to expand their business and “take it to the next level” - Shark Tank and Dragons Den are the two I can think of; there may be more. Just think about those names for a minute. Think of danger and power and being in a confined space with this danger. The who le atmosphere of the show emphasizes this as well.

One of the Dragons, or is he a Shark, or both, “all I care about is making MONEY”. He wont invest in anything other than something which has the best chance of delivering a profit! In exchange for money these entrepreneurs give up a percentage of their profits and full control of their business.

A great deal of the profit in the time of Jesus was made by wealthy people off the backs of the poor; there was no middle class. Working people worked long hours, barely got by and were steps away from starvation. Interest rates were so high they seemed designed to facilitate the transfer of wealth to the elites and that was probably true. People of means worked every angle possible not to have to share with the poor any more than a meagre wage. Widows and orphans were particularly destitute.

As I was writing this sermon I realized that, in the past 50 years or so, the world has become more and more like it was back in Jesus day - where it is alleged the 1% profit off of the work of the 99% and think that is the way it has to be.

Prince Edward Island was carved up in to lots and given to wealthy friends of the crown with the stipulation that it be settled. That sounded good to the crown and to the absentee landlords but the farmers who settled and worked the land, in most cases, had little hope of owning their own farms, after having done all the work. One of the terms of Confederation in 1873 was the buyout of the last of the absentee landlords and the transfer of the land to the farmers who had been there for generations. There is something in the soul of a farmer that requires that they hold title to the land they farm.

As I was reading various resources to try and get a handle on this passage and satisfy my difficulty with the idea that Jesus would agree with this kind of thinking, I came across a resource that proposed an alternative view. This view led me in new directions, directions which spoke to the disquiet this passage caused in me.

Maybe this third slave was just plain unwilling to take part in this kind of exploitation. Because he had to return this money to the master, he buried it, which was, apparently an honourable thing to do, if he had been rich. If he had put it in a bank it would have been safe from theft but he would have been handing the money to someone else to do with it what he had been unwilling to do. He was going against the wishes of his master and refusing to exploit his neighbours. He was exercising a freedom he did not really have.

Perhaps that was the only way he could live with himself.

The master in today’s passage would suit those who believe the rich SHOULD get richer and the poor are to blame for their own lack of ability, lack of education, lack of a leg up, and thus doomed to poverty.

What if the people listening had to make up their own minds - chose the joy of a cruel master or chose the right and choose the outer darkness. Hummmmm.

As a people of faith the issue for us is: how do we live in a world where the expectation seems to be profit at all costs and to heck with fair labour practices, the environment and plain human decency.

What do we think? Where do we want to be?

Amen.

Ephesians 1: 15-23
Psalm 100
Matthew 25: 31-46

The very first thing that happens upon arrival at the Hogworts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is the sorting of the first year students into “houses”. That is of course AFTER receiving an invitation to register by “owl post”, stopping off at the magical Diagon Alley to buy a wand, cauldron and other needed items, getting to Kings Cross Station and finding the very magical Platform 9 & 3/4 for a train ride into the countryside and then being ferried across the moat in the darkness to a large castle! The animated hat will assess the new student’s abilities, wishes and whatnot and then loudly proclaim what house the student will join – Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Gryfindor, or Ravenclaw. Houses are much more than residences in this magical boarding school; they compete against one another in sports, behaviour and marks to be the winner and thus have the house colours displayed in the School Dining Room.

Harry Potter, the boy that survived an attempt on his life by the evil Voldemort, is sorted into Gryffindor at the beginning of Book 1, and at the very end of the series, his young son is sent off on the Hogwarts Express, with some fatherly advice on the “sorting hat” process.

Though few of us have been to such a school, most of us will have had experience of rivalry between High Schools, community teams, if not also between residences at University.

In today’s Gospel passage it is the Son of Man, returned in glory, not a tattered witch’s hat, who does the sorting.

One of my former professors from Atlantic School of Theology makes the point that the sorting is not of individuals but of NATIONS. We’ll get to what difference that might make, later on in the sermon.

What is the criteria OF THIS SORTING and what are the results? The criteria is the giving of aid to the Son of Man in prison, when hungry, when without clothing, or in some kind of need; or not giving aid in these cases One group did not do it and became designated as goats. One group did, even though they had not recognized the “Son of Man” when they were helping people in need, and they were classed as sheep.

The sorting of sheep from goats was a common and regular event in the lives of farmers in Jesus’ day. Apparently they grazed together but had to be separated on occasion; perhaps for shearing; perhaps for milking?

Notice that we seem to be talking about the “faithful” here, nations or not! They both address the king as “Lord”.

For a faithful person or nation, it seems obvious that IF they HAD seen the Son of Man in need, they would have helped, but all they saw was a homeless person, a person who was hungry, a man in prison, a woman with no clothing for her children. They did not see Jesus.

The sheep people, on the other hand, did not see Jesus in the one in need either, but they clothed, fed, and befriended anyway.

Why sheep? Why goats? Perhaps sheep had a better reputation than goats but whatever the differences were have largely been lost in the centuries since and its not terribly important anymore anyway. The actions of the story speak for themselves. Sometimes you need to know what is what.

There are a multitude of stories told about rulers IN DISGUISE who received, or did not receive, a warm welcome from the people they had visited.

One is mostly told closer to Christmas, and the ruler is, of course, the Holy Child! A shoemaker has a dream that the Christ Child will come to his home on Christmas Eve. So he makes a pair of beautiful soft baby boots in suede and lines them with lambs-wool. He buys a warm wool blanket and cooks a hearty stew. As evening falls he sits in his chair by the stove, occasionally stirring the stew, set to the back so it does not overcook. As Christmas Eve progresses there is only one knock on the door of his little hut. Standing outside in the cold is not the Christ Child but a local woman, poorly clothed for the weather, and her very cold looking baby. He invites them in and shares his food with them. As the distant church bell strikes midnight he notices the baby’s cold, bare feet and gives the small shoes to the mother for her son and the shawl for her own shoulders. As they leave they thank him profusely. He closes the door behind him, disappointment in every breath. What could have happened; the dream was so clear! He had expected fine clothes, trumpets and angel choirs. He blows out his candle and goes to bed. In his dream that night he hears a verse from this passage affirming that he had indeed aided the Christ Child.

Perhaps it would be better put that neither the goats nor the sheep recognized a connection between acts of charity and their faith but the sheep acted in this way anyway.

Its not about “what’s in it for me” because the goats would have helped if they knew the consequences – the sheep did so anyway.

Some of my colleagues in this last week have posted comments on this passage and indicated that they, and many in the church, have a great deal of trouble with the eternal fire and weeping and gnashing of teeth part of this story. How does a loving God do this to people who aren’t “bad” they are just people who don’t “get it”. There is a lot of merit in that point of view, but I don’t think we need to push the story that far; the message is the same, whether or not there is an eternal joy or eternal damnation attached to it!

I went to an annual meeting once where there was a small attendance. We were told that there were stickers on the bottom of the tea cups and if we had a sticker we received a prize. Well, if our teacup did not have a sticker all we had to do was check all the cups at the empty seats till we found one| Why let a good door prize go to waste!

What if there were no reward for the behaviour commended in the sheep – what of the life of love was its own reward, what of that kind of life was just the right thing to do.

We all joke about stars in our crowns, or “brownie points” but what does that really mean? What motivation is there in that?

The goal is to be so transformed by the Gospel that we neither seek reward nor act so as to avoid punishment,; we simply do the things Jesus mentions and more, because it is the right thing.

The sheep were as surprised as the goats!

The life of faith is not about calculating if we have given enough, fed enough, visited enough but about transformation so that giving, visiting, clothing, and loving is part and parcel of who we are.

We are not doing so in a driven way. Make no mistake, we can be nasty and begrudging and miss the point even while we do everything right (according to this parable). We can be the picture of perfect Christian charity but still be an old goat!

Perhaps there is nothing extra in it for us, really – but that’s ok because that’s who we are. Whose are we is the real question.

Are we children of the loving God, brothers and sisters of Christ who have received so much already that we cannot help but share and seek to make the lives of others better? Do we live by and through grace or are we trying in each action to be the right kind of animal?

Stop counting? Stop planning? The outcome is not our job. Lets be the children of God and leave the rest to God.

Amen.