It's Not About Me

 In the Gospel lesson for today we have jumped ahead in Matthew 

to the day after Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey

                                    and cleansed the Temple, cleaned it right out.

Jesus then has the chutzpah to return the next day 

            and immediately start teaching whoever was there.

            

Quickly the chief priests and the elders are all over him.

           Who gave Jesus the authority to come in on their territory – the temple –                                                 and preach to their congregation?!

 

But their question backfires on them,

            because Jesus was the kind of teacher 

who answers a question with a question  (the sign of a good teacher!)

 

They can see that whatever they answer 

about the issue of John the Baptist’s authority, 

will authenticate Jesus, rather than stifle him, as was their intent.

 

But Jesus is not done with his questions to them.

He does them the service of continuing to challenge them to face up to truth, 

when he says:

“What do you think?  A man had two sons.

One son lips off, and the other gives lip service.”

 

Whatever those boys said in response to their father’s directive, 

the important thing is: did the will of the father get done?

 

Is the work of the chief priests and elders lip service 

to doing the will of the father?

Can it really be that tax collectors and prostitutes 

are the real ones doing the will of the Father? 

 

Notice that once again Matthew, former tax collector, now Gospel writer,

             makes a point of saying – 

it is the tax collectors and other sinner-types, those unlikely characters,

who are realizing the Kingdom of God 

            ahead of those who think they know what God wants,

                        but have missed the point. . . . 

 

Now I want to turn to the Epistle reading for today.

 

There is tremendous Gospel good news in the Epistle for today,

            a beautiful hymn of praise and adoration 

that overflows from the heart in response to the example of Jesus.

 

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 

            who, though he was in the form of God, 

                        did not regard equality with God 

                        as something to be exploited, 

             but emptied himself… “

 

Jesus emptied himself.  

 

What does that mean, 

            and why would we want to have the same mind as Christ,

and how in the world could we have that same mind too?  

                                    I honestly ask myself these questions.

 

Jesus emptied himself.

            He acted always for others, not for himself. 

His continual focus was on serving those who came to him.  

He did not exhibit a personal agenda that would in any way bring 

power to himself 

or rock star fame 

or wealth 

or recognition in the eyes of the world, 

because the humility of Jesus is not what the world admires and values.  

 

Jesus showed us what is truly meant by the expression, “It’s not about me.”  This is a key ingredient in describing the Kingdom of God, 

where the value system is the inverse of the world’s value system.

Despite how explicitly this is expressed here in the Philippians passage 

it seems that we, the Church, inevitably end up 

trying to make things work in the church 

by using the world system instead of the Kingdom of God system.  

It’s just a bit too risky to trust, and there’s where we get off track.

 

But Jesus emptied himself.

 

He consistently seemed to prefer referring to himself 

as the Son of Man/Humankind rather than Son of God, 

Son of Man being a title that indicated servant, 

the one waiting on the others, serving their needs.

 

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”

 

“…being born in human likeness. 

            And being found in human form, 

                        he humbled himself 

                        and became obedient to the point of death— 

                        even death on a cross.”

 

Death!  Obedience to the point of death!

 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…

There is a giant assumption made here, 

that one would want to have the same mind as Jesus

                        even if it included obedience to the point of death?

 

If we dared to say yes to that assumption, 

if we were willing to take on the discipleship of obedience

out of an intention to exhibit in our own lives the Mind of Christ,

then the actions of life that would be expressed 

might look more like the son in that parable who didn’t want to work, 

but went and did it anyway.

 

Now here’s the application that would fit just beautifully 

for this congregation here right now 

with all the sorts of concerns and issues

currently a part of our life together and our life in the broader community:

Dealing together with COVID and how to be safely with each other in the building

working together as we start the search process for a new rector 

and checking what our own sense of identity has been and now is 

            and how that informs the vision we have for the future.

 

And at the same time we are each dealing with so much,

            like grief, 

            or personal health issues

or economic uncertainty, 

or concerns regarding civil unrest, 

or all of the above.

And how we all relate to and trust one another here in this faith community.

                                    Have I missed anything?                                     

 

St. Paul’s words to the faith community in Philippi 

could be the same words any priest or pastor would say 

to any congregation they served:

 

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, 

if there is any consolation from love, 

if there is any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy,

make my joy complete – make me happy: 

be of the same mind, 

have the same love for each other, 

for those you can least get along with as well as your favorite friends, 

have the same generosity of love for one another,

            with the kind of love that sees all as one,

be in full accord,                                                            be of one mind. 

 

AND do nothing from selfish ambition – for this is not about you.

Do nothing out of an attitude of conceit, 

but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 

Let each of you look not to your own interests, 

but to the interests of others. 

Can we really try that in listening to each other?

 

I would like to point out that

to look not to your own interests but the interests of others 

is a good description of what it is to really listen to another.

How often when we are listening to another person 

are we already forming in our own minds 

the answer we are going to give 

or the comment we want to make on the topic.

Our attention is divided between what the other person is saying 

and what I am about to say.

Listening with your own agenda running 

is not really listening.

It’s using the other’s words as a launching pad for your own speech.

 

The gift of listening is a rare gift 

that when encountered is deeply appreciated, 

as I think you can attest to 

recalling such an experience of talking with someone 

and knowing that you have really been listened to. 

How affirming that is!

How much that gives a sense of worth and value to what is said!

And how much that opens the way for the one listened to 

then to also truly listen and be open to hearing from another.

 

What we observe about Jesus in the accounts in the Gospels 

is about the way he treated others 

            and how in all cases he was serving them            

even when asking them pointed question that would make them wince. 

 

Even when he was confronting people with hard words of truth, 

this was in profoundest service of love, 

for the sake of their very salvation.

 

So then, how can we have the Mind of Christ?

 

It is already there, but we are unaware of it.

Cultivating mindfulness to the Mind of Christ present in us 

would seem to be an approach.

We can do that right now by being mindful 

            of the readings and the words of the liturgy.  

Just pay attention                        right now.

 

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…

And the Epistle reading ends with these sobering words:

             “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 

            for it is God who is at work in you, 

            enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

 

We have a paradox of working out our salvation on the one hand, 

but on the other hand this is impossible 

because really it is God who works out the salvation in us.

 

Indeed it is God who puts in us 

the very motivation and intention of our own efforts.

Yet we are admonished to try.  

            It’s a way to get us to cooperate with what God is trying to do in us,

so that we can be like the son who changed his no

                                                into going to do the will of the Father.

PERSPECTIVE

Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, 

            but to love things heavenly; 

and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, 

            to hold fast to those that shall endure.  Amen.

 

 

The collect for today addresses 

                                    our immediate anxiety about current circumstances.

And yes, we have an abundance of current circumstances 

                        in the world at large and right here

                                                to raise the anxiety level even higher than it has been.

But this collect reminds us 

            that these are things that are passing away, transitory.

The collect calls attention to 

            the things that are passing away and those that shall endure – 

                        the temporal and the eternal.

When we set our attention on the things that are passing away,

            we are seeing things from a limited perspective

and when attention is draw to that which endures

            that limited perspective is expanded until we are seeing things 

                                                                                    from God’s perspective.

 

In part the reason why we come here may be just that thing –

            to be moved out of our limited perspective

                        and to catch the vision of the eternal,

            to have our awareness expanded 

                        and be brought into the Presence of God.

 

So let’s see how the readings for today can expand our awareness. 

 

I believe there is a good connection between the story from Exodus 

and the parable Jesus told about the owner of the vineyard and the laborers.

 

In Exodus the situation is this:

The Israelites had just escaped crushing slavery in Egypt.

They were on their way 

            off into the unknown 

            with a hope for a promised land flowing with milk and honey.

But where they were now was in the middle of a desert,

            a huge expanse of inhospitable geography that dwarfed their numbers,

            a threatening environment with no respite.  (Sound familiar?)

How did the Children of Israel react?  They complained.

            That word, complained, is used 7 times in this passage.

They weren’t thankful for being saved from bondage as slaves.

They weren’t even faithfully down on their knees 

                        asking the God, who had saved them once, 

                                                            to help them now in this time of need.

They were just complaining.

 

But, you know, it didn’t matter.

They were going to get fed.

That was the plan,

            for they were a chosen people, 

chosen to become a people who would be a light to the nations, 

            an example of God’s redemptive grace.

            an example to show what God could do.

The test was how they would respond to the current situation.

And their reactions showed their current spiritual condition,

            that is, a limited perspective concerned with things passing away.

But God’s grace would intervene.

 

Then we have the Parable of the owner of the vineyard:

As usual Jesus tells a story with a twist on the expected,

and this time he presents the Kingdom of Heaven 

            as a landowner who employs an economic policy 

                        that is entirely contrary to common sense 

                                                            and the economic system we know and live in.

 

Jesus messes with the economic values 

                                                                        and moral sensibility of human culture.

You heard me right.

Jesus messes with the economic values and moral sensibility of human culture.

It appears that Jesus has the owner of the vineyard 

                                    take advantage of the hard working laborers                                    and then reward those who contributed little.

There was no recognition of the great disparity in labor.

When we hear this parable we may say with the workers hired first,

            “It’s not fair!”

 

In the parable, who were those hired at the beginning of the day?

            the best workers:                        they were on time first thing in the morning,

                        they were those known to be able to work the hardest,

                                    to bring in the most bushels of grapes per hour,

                        those who would give an honest day’s work

                                    for an honest day’s wage.

But…

those hired at the end of the day were likely to be those who were known for

                        taking long coffee breaks

                        eating as many grapes as went into the baskets

                        those who were slow, harvested less per hour

                        and were late showing up for work in the morning

 

To pay the workers hired at 5 minutes before quitting time 

            the same as those hired at 8:00 AM

was taken as an insult to the quality and quantity of work of those hired first.

 

Our world is hard wired to the pragmatic way of looking at things that says

            it’s all about working to get paid what you’ve earned.

The least the owner of the vineyard should have done

                        if he was going to pay those hired last the same full day’s wage

the least he should have done

            would have been to give those hired first merit raises!

 

It’s not fair!

But this parable is not about the workers, but about grace.

This parable is very radical, 

            breaking cultural and social expectations and mores

                        not only in Jesus’ time 

                        but ours here just as much.

Jesus does not say that the Kingdom of Heaven is like the workers

            but like the owner of the vineyard.

 

The Kingdom of God has different values:

            it is inclusive.

            The last get the same as the first.

We think those who work more should get more.

But Jesus says everyone needs the daily wage, that is, their daily bread.

He says, give everybody a full day’s wage to meet their needs…

            Everyone has the same basic needs.

The landowner included them for that reason,

            not in return for their labor,

                        but out of compassion and generosity  

                                                and from his own apparently limitless abundance.

To cry, “No fair!” is to speak out of the limited perspective of things temporal.

 

It’s like God providing the manna and the quails 

            to all those complaining Israelites.

The compassion and generosity is not conditioned 

                        by the gratitude of the Children of Israel,

            and it is not conditioned by our limited perspective.

What is eternal is the compassion and generosity.

 

May we each be able to recognize the gift of daily bread,

            that which we think we have earned that provides for us, 

                                    that supplies our literal, physical needs,

AND may we also recognize 

            that which provides us with our very life breath 

                        day by day and hour by hour and minute by minute,

            that which sustains us body and spirit.

 

May we each be able to recognize 

            how we have been called by a compassionate Savior 

                        and baptized into the Kingdom of God, into the very Body of Christ.­

  

So here is where we can draw in the Epistle reading for today.

The Apostle Paul could be speaking directly to us 

            as much as to the faithful in Philippi. 

 

Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, (he writes) … 

            … standing firm in one spirit,

             striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, 

and … in no way intimidated by your opponents. 

 

I like this.

What Paul writes reminds us that we aren’t going it alone.

Stand firm in one spirit – all of you together, not alone, each individually, 

            but instead sharing one faith, one Lord, one baptism

                        as we say at the very beginning of the Baptismal liturgy.

Striving side by side, working together within the faith community

            because despite all of our different opinions, like and dislikes,

                        ideas, desires, concerns,

the Gospel we claim to hold faith in

            is where we can be of one spirit, one mind.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is one of abundant, unmerited grace and love

            that shreds our enculturated view of earned merit.

 

Think about this:  Do we really want to get what we deserve?

 

All around us the voices of the culture we live in say things like,

            I earned this.  It’s my right.  Their ideas are crazy.

            THEY are going to ruin it for me and my own kind.

            It’s them or us.              “It’s not fair.”            

 

But the economy of the Kingdom of Heaven does not distinguish them and us,

            and instead pours out abundance to the undeserving

                        and grace to the hardest of hearts

            to melt us all into the love that unifies us in the things that are eternal.

There IS a wideness in God’s mercy.

 

“Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, 

            but to hold fast to those that shall endure…”

 Being a born and bred Episcopalian, 

I was confirmed when I was 12 years old.

This was at St. David’s Episcopal Church 

in the then Missionary District of Spokane.

The bishop who confirmed me was Russell S. Hubbard, 

whom I remembered as a giant of a man 

with huge hands that pressed down on my head 

with all the weight and solemnity of the occasion.

I was so impressed by this man as a child 

that I actually listened to and remembered his sermons.

 

One sermon of his that I remembered so well was about the Lord’s Prayer.  

The bishop varied his usual calm, even tones 

to a rise of inflection and stronger volume to tell us, 

“This prayer is the most damning prayer you can pray, 

when you say, ‘Forgive us our trespasses 

as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ 

You are asking God not to forgive you unless you also forgive others.”

 

Thus I learned from early years that forgiveness 

was very important and very central in living out the Faith.

 

Now let me share something with you about the Greek word for forgiveness.

John 11:44  When Jesus called Lazarus to come out of the tomb, 

he then said to those who were there witnessing this 

to loose him and let him go.  

The word in Greek for “let him go” 

is the same word that is commonly used throughout the entire NT 

for the verb to forgive.

In the Greek of the New Testament 

to forgive is to send forth, with the idea of setting free.

Sins are forgiven a person, that is, the sins are sent away, 

so that the person is no longer bound by them.

Someone who is forgiven 

is someone who has had their sins taken from them 

and tossed away, sent away.

The person is liberated.

 

Remember the story of the paralyzed man 

            who was brought to Jesus by his four friends

             who stopped at nothing to get him in front of Jesus?

 

Jesus said to the man, “Your sins are forgiven.”

And the religious experts who were with him there got in a twit 

because Jesus had just pushed their hot buttons.

And he did it on purpose, of course.

Jesus healed the man of his paralysis by saying, 

“Your sins that are binding you are sent away, forgiven.”

And the man, no longer paralyzed by his sins, walked.

 

In today’s Gospel lesson, Peter approaches Jesus with a serious question.

“If another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive?”

            Now, how did the church get into this passage?

            This is the gospel; the time setting is before the church was formed.

Friends, it doesn’t say that in the Greek.

            It is much more specific.

It reads: “If my brother sins against me, how often should I forgive?”

            Hmmm – Andrew has been given his brother Peter some grief.

                        Quite common among siblings, don’t you know.

But we also must remember that around Jesus we are all brothers and sisters.

            We are all family – every single one of us, and not just here in this place.

                        ALL humankind really.

 

Well, how long does Peter have to put up with being sinned against by another?

            Seven times?            How about 77 times, Jesus replies.

He tells Peter 

that he is not to be stingy in how many times he sends away sin.

 

Jesus modeled forgiveness VERY powerfully in healing the paralyzed man,

             and then he instructed his disciples to do this also, 

to set others free from what binds them in their lives.

 

But Peter sees a problem with this.

What if someone thinks they are getting away with something 

and then takes advantage of this free forgiveness 

and just keeps on transgressing, 

especially if it is personally directed at the same person.

It was as though Peter was saying, 

“Jesus, do you want them to think that we’re dumb or weak or doormats?!  

Isn’t there a reasonable limit?!”

 

Peter was expressing a very real issue for the people of that time and culture, 

an issue which is still very much alive today.

 

So Jesus needs to show Peter, and all of us, 

that there is another perspective other than our usual world view 

that reframes the issue entirely differently.

 

So he tells a Kingdom of Heaven story about a bond servant/a slave

who somehow managed to accrue a debt in the millions of dollars,

            far more than the total value of his lifetime work productivity

                                                many times over.

When this servant gets down on his knees and begs for mercy, 

the king (whom the Kingdom of Heaven is like in this parable) 

is moved deeply with pity 

and lavishly forgives the whole debt, 

he sets him free from the debt, he casts out the debt.

 

So this fellow has a brand new lease on life, a whole new start.

And what does he do?

He immediately looks up someone who owes him the equivalent 

of four months wages for a common laborer, 

not unlike the amount of credit card debt that many folks have,

a significant amount but nothing like what he had owed.

But he just can’t let that amount go, 

after all he himself is now starting over from scratch.  

He has his wife and kids to provide for. 

He wants to get on with his life.

            So he insists that this colleague of his pay up – now.

 

This time there is not the same compassion and valuing of his coworker

            that had been shown to him.

First he grabbed him by the neck, 

                        his hands around his windpipe cutting off vital air, 

            and then throws him into debtors prison.

That’s how much he values his coworker;

            he only sees him as 100 denarii.

That is all he is worth to him.

 

He is totally disconnected from the act of mercy shown to him, 

            but those around him can see clearly the blatant disconnection, 

and they are so scandalized by his action that they go tell the king.

 

And this man is then held accountable for his actions.

It was not his debt, but his own lack of mercy  

that brought him to a dismal end.

 

What Jesus is saying to Peter 

is that we may not realize just how much mercy we are shown by God, 

how much grace we live by.  

There is abundance of this mercy, 

and we are disconnected from the realization of it.  

 

To withhold mercy and forgiveness 

then shows that we are blind to what we ourselves have received,

             and this places us in a very shaky position spiritually.

We have got to forgive!

 

In the parable the king goes ballistic when he is told what happened.

The King commands that he be 

            “handed … over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt.”

But remember how this parable started?

            The Kingdom of Heaven is like a king 

                                                who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.

 

And Jesus concludes, “So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you,             if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

 

Do this sound like a threat to you?

Then think of it in terms of a consequence.

But the point is this:

            The wickedness of the unjust bond servant

                        was in separating himself from the community 

                        and missing entirely the importance of the brother, the sister.

 

If you do not forgive, if you do not take away the debt owed you,

            you will be put into a state of suffering, like being tortured.

And then when you are feeling so bad 

                                    that you feel as though you are being torn apart, 

            then God will show you that there is no separation with God, 

                        no possible separation from others, 

            and God will show compassion.            That is how mercy works.

The brother or sister cannot be made an object,

            cannot be quantified with a price, a monetary value.

 

And the forgiveness, the taking away of the debt, must be from the heart,

            Jesus says.

God who knows the thoughts of our hearts, as the Collect for Purity states,

            is always looking at the heart and its struggles.

                        Is the heart clean and open?            Or is it choked and cramped?            

For always we can count on this:

            We are worth more to God than the value of our debt.

            We are worth more to God than the value of our debt.

 

Knowing that and remembering last week’s Gospel, 

            what is the value to us of the one who sins against us?

Forgiving frees you, and it also frees the one forgiven.

            It opens the way for you both to be brought back into communion, 

                                                                                                into community.

And so, dear people, 

be mindful of the incredible abundance of mercy shown to you.

And if today in this place, the shoe fits,

                                                put it on.