You are a promise

Year A, Proper 3
Readings: Isaiah 49:8-16a 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 Matthew 6:24-34 Psalm 131

Thus says the Lord, “I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people…” (Is 49:8)
A covenant is a promise. God says, “I have… given you as a promise to the people…”
God has given you as a promise to this town and this place. God has given you like a promise to the people of Silsbee and Hardin County. You are part of God’s promise to the people you live around and come to know and care about.
What kind of promise? – for one, a promise of justiceWhat kind of promise? Isaiah talks about things like helping people establish themselves and get back their lost, wasted or stolen heritage. Those are promises of justice.
We are part of God’s promise to this community – and that includes working for justice for people who are being mistreated and hurt and taken advantage of.
Examples
For many years, Gary Monday served as a police officer and saw all kinds of abuse and violence and exploitation – and part of his job was to serve justice by catching the offenders and sometimes by restoring some of what was lost in the damage. Gary was part of God’s promise of justice to the people he served. He was also part of God’s promise of justice to the offenders themselves – because as Paul would argue, being shown that you’ve broken the law gives you a clear call to turn around and change.
But Gary couldn’t possibly keep the whole of God’s promise of justice to all those people by himself (though sometimes, people seem to expect that of the police). There are lots of pieces to our justice system, and lots of people involved in each of those pieces.Betty See worked for many years with victim’s services, and part of her job was to help the victims re-establish themselves – to gain back some sense of security and dignity and self-confidence.
Diane Bebee is now extending her previous work as a social worker and therapist. She’s working to establish The Roosevelt House here in Silsbee. It’s going to be a place of refuge for girls who have been temporarily taken out of their homes because of abuse or neglect.
Right in the back of the church here, sharing space with us, is the Samaritan Counseling Center. You can see the sign when you go out the kitchen door. It serves some of these same children by offering counseling to cope with the abuse they have suffered.
Earl Stover works as a judge, and his job is also part of God’s promise of justice to the people of this community. Our laws serve as guides to set down what we understand justice to be – what kinds of interactions between people reflect justice and what kinds of interactions reflect injustice… It’s the job of judges to interpret those questions in individual situations. When a judge administers justice well, it can give people the opportunity to make things right.
Justice and Grace
This is similar in some ways to the function of the service of reconciliation in our prayer book – just as our justice system doesn’t assume people are perfect, the church also doesn’t assume people are perfect, that we will never mess up, that we will never hurt each other. Of course we will – of course we do. Both the church and our legal system assume that we will mess up. They provide ways to deal with the wrong things we do and also give opportunities for us to turn around and do things differently and re-join the work and service going on.
Fr. John used to be a lawyer, serving as part of God’s promise of justice in that capacity, and now he is a priest and offers us in an even more obvious way God’s promise of justice – which includes grace and forgiveness.
All these things: making just laws, justly enforcing laws, justly interpreting laws, helping victims, helping offenders, offering avenues for reconciliation and grace and forgiveness – these are all part of the same promise of justice that God makes – and that God has given us some responsibility for upholding.
That’s a really big responsibility – to uphold God’s promise of justice - Justice is a tall order. That’s why it takes so many people doing different parts – and each doing them conscientiously. None of those parts are dispensable. Each one of us individually is not so strong or powerful, but together, and with God, we can stand up against injustices and defend people who are being hurt and taken advantage of, especially those who can’t stand up for themselves. And we can work to reconcile and restore people who are doing the hurting as well. God’s justice covers a lot of things.

Don't forget
An important part of justice is not forgetting things that are unresolved, not forgetting people who are still suffering, but making sure we remember until things are made right.
There are lots of people still stuck in bad circumstances, and they are wondering if anybody knows or cares – or if they have been forgotten by everyone, if even God has forgotten them…

But God doesn’t forget. God doesn’t forget any of the people he has made. ‘Can a woman forget [her own baby]? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you,’ God says, ‘See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.’ (Is 49:15-16)God doesn’t forget any of us. He has our names written on his hands.
What can we do to remember the people and situations we should not forget?
One big way is prayer.
With her prayer beads, Bette Cheek holds in her hands the people God’s given her to remember – including everybody here at St. John’s – and everyday, she prays for us. And she makes prayer beads so other people can do the same. I’m sure many of you have some. Glenda Gray’s pictorial directory can be a similar tool. You can look at the pictures and pray for people and pray for the church. The prayer list in the bulletin is another tool - we pray aloud for these needs Sunday and Wednesday of each week. The Daughters of the King have studied and made vows to pray regularly, and they meet together to stay accountable to that calling. They also wear their crosses everyday to help them remember they have committed themselves to prayer.
Our prayer book includes prayers about every kind of situation the church feels must be remembered – and they’re laid out in a regular rotation so we cover them all. The prayers of the people we do each week also remind us of all the areas God’s hand covers – and for which we also share some responsibility. Justice is only one of them. Our worship is intentionally structured so we will be reminded on a regular basis of all the things God is concerned for – all the things God promises – for us and for everyone.
But being reminded is just the catalyst, just the first part to get things started – if I remember and then forget again, remember, forget, remember again.. without anything ever actually happening as a result, what good is that? The reason we remember is that remembering God’s promises should change the way we live.

God has given us as a promise to the people around us – and God does not forget his promises.

You are a promise.
We are a promise.

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Given to St. John's, Silsbee
May 25, 2008

About fighting

Year C - Pentecost, Proper 24
Readings: Genesis 32:3-8,22-302 Timothy 3:14-4:5 Luke 18:1-8a Psalm 121


A common theme in today's texts is that of persistence in struggle and difficulty - hanging in there. Fighting and prevailing.
In struggling with the man he believes to be God, Jacob literally hangs on until he receives a blessing. In the epistle, Timothy is urged to "continue in what you have learned and firmly believed" and to "be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable..." And in the gospel, Jesus tells a parable "about the need to pray always and not lose heart." The widow in his story "kept coming" and asking for justice, and eventually the unjust judge decided to grant it "so that she will not wear me out by continually coming."
Another aspect of this theme of struggle and persistence seems to be the presence of opposition. In the Gospel, the widow seeks justice against an unnamed opponent - we don't know the problem there - but then she has a further struggle with the judge, who doesn't really care about justice and so in that sense forms some more opposition.
In the OT reading, the opponent seems to be God. The text just says 'a man,' but Jacob clearly believes afterward that he has seen God and even fought with him, and he's amazed God didn't kill him. Jacob wrestles with the man, and the man dislocates his hip, but Jacob still won't let him go without a blessing, so the man gives Jacob a new name. "You shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed." The word translated as 'prevail' doesn't necessarily mean that he conquered his opponent - that he beat God; it can also mean that he showed endurance, strength and courage in the fight. I think that's very important to notice - you don't have to beat your opponent to prevail.
I think struggle and fighting are things most of us can relate to. We fight with people, with circumstances, with God, with ourselves. What does it mean to prevail in these?
When we fight with people, it's just as often, if not more often, that we fight with people we love. In this situation, beating your opponent is not really a good way to 'win.' In a fight with family or friends, this kind of winning isn't very satisfactory.
When we fight circumstances, whether it's a health issue, a job situation, a policy or a law, people usually get drawn into it, too - even if you know what's to blame, it's hard to fight something you can't see or touch.
Sometimes, we fight God, and a similar thing can happen there - think Cain and Abel. But really, if anybody can handle our fight, it's God. Writers of the Psalms often got really angry with God; so did Job, and so did Jonah, and so did countless other people in the Scriptures. God's big enough to take it, and if God's the one you're mad at, God's the one to take it up with. I think it's also true that when you fight with God, you know God better.
Then there's fighting within ourselves: fighting our fears, our demons, and all the gunk we internalize from the problems and dysfunction in our lives. In the book The Imitation of Christ, I ran across this: "Who has a greater struggle than those who labor to overcome themselves?" Anyone who's faced addiction or even observed someone in that struggle can agree this is true.
In all of these struggles, what does it look like to prevail? I think part of the answer relates to peace. Sometimes, just to endure is to prevail - if you've made it this far, regardless of how much damage you've sustained - the fact that you're here is prevailing. Your scars show what you've been through - like Jacob limping as he walked away from wrestling with God. But you've lived to tell about it - you struggled with God and the world and yourself, and you've prevailed.
What if you lose? It depends on what you think losing is. I think to make peace with an opponent is to prevail, even if they win. For example, to face death and make peace with that opponent, whether you then live or die - is to prevail in that struggle - to show courage and endurance. I heard a saying once: 'Courage is fear that has said its prayers.' I like that, and I think it's true.
When I was facing a medical procedure to repair a brain aneurysm a couple of years ago, I also had to face the fear of dying. There came a point, after six months of delays, when all my distractions were gone, and there was no avoiding it anymore.
I wouldn't say I won that battle; I didn't beat the fear. I tried every argument I could think of to reason myself into peace, and I couldn't. Fear is more primal than reason. So finally, I prayed and asked God to give me peace about death, and it came.
It was so simple, I didn't believe it could be true at first and tried to make myself afraid again, but I couldn't. So I prevailed, but it wasn't because I defeated the fear; it was because God fought for me when I couldn't fight anymore.
Another thing about fighting is that it reveals a lot about the character of the contenders. When you fight someone, you know them. This idea was expressed in the sequel to the Matrix, when Neo is summoned to a meeting, and as soon as he walks in the door, the doorkeeper immediately engages him in a ferocious battle. Afterwards, the guy says he had to fight Neo in order to know for sure who he was.
I've started arguments with people before for no apparent reason, I suppose to see how they would respond, to flush them out into the open, I guess, to figure them out. And I've had people do that to me, too - to see how far they could push me before I pushed back.
There's something about competition that brings out things you don't see in casual interaction. People are more raw when they're fighting or competing. If you play any sport, or ever have, you know this. I played soccer from the time I was four until just a few years ago, and now I fence. In either place, I've found I learn a lot about people by facing them in competition. I learn their strength, their speed, their stamina, their habits and their style, how rough or skillful they are, whether they play clean or dirty.
The other side to this is, I learn a lot about myself, too. Some of it's good - some not.
When I played soccer, I learned that I'm persistent and I'm tough, but I'm not always realistic about the laws of physics. I frequently got knocked down trying to challenge people much bigger than me, but I'd get up and keep going. When I played goalkeeper, I wasn't afraid to dive or charge a forward one-on-one.
I also learned, though, that when I played forward, I had a tendency under pressure to sabotage my own plays and then make excuses about why I lost the ball, even though I had enough skill, technically, to keep it. If I had a fullback bearing down on me, for example, sometimes I'd cross the ball early from the wing just to get rid of it. But the center forwards weren't in place yet, so all that work to get the ball up was wasted.
The thing is, probably nobody would blame me. Except that I knew I was doing it. And actually, you can't have that many 'unlucky' breaks without someone seeing a pattern. When I played on my cousin's team, he commented 'Good Lord, I've never seen a more skittish forward!'
He had me sorted. I didn't have myself sorted, though. I didn't know WHY I was doing it. But at that point, I decided I better figure it out and try to fix it.
I think the same concept is true in many types of competition: the quest for grades, the desire to climb a ladder or achieve some status, even political debates.
The reason this is useful - what we see in the microcosm of a game or a debate or an argument, we can work on in that context and in other areas. And more broadly, what we see when fighting under any circumstances, can be an indicator of strengths or weaknesses.
In spite of our desire for peace, we do a fair amount of fighting. I think it's somewhat a part of the way we are as people. Maybe this is why God fights with Jacob and doesn't kill him - because God knows Jacob and knows that's the way he is.
Some people just come out swinging, and Jacob's whole life was like that - Jacob wasn't the ideal man like Abraham - calmly accepting all kinds of difficulties and waiting patiently for their seemingly impossible fulfillment. No, Jacob was going to grab what he could - he was grabbing his brother's heel when he was born - and since that moment was always fighting or scheming with somebody.
One of the most notable examples was when he tricked his brother Esau out of a blessing, and it was after this that he fled his home, afraid of the revenge his brother would taken when he discovered this.
Sometimes, people just kind of have to fight, I think. We wish for peace and harmony and unity with no divisions, but the reality is far from these ideals. In our culture, we don't have a lot of acceptable circumstances for fighting, but I think in some sense, people need to contend with something. Sports are one example, but also things like Survivor and a lot of those reality TV shows, where all kinds of normal activities, like dating, doing a job interview, and designing clothes are turned into competition events. Yesterday, I was watching Iron Chef America - they were having 'Battle Eggplant'...Now you tell me we don't have a need for competition!
The movie Fight Club is a very clear example - these young guys started a club just to fight each other - hand to hand, no gloves, no weapons, and very few rules. The story is somewhat more complicated than this, but essentially, the appeal seemed to be that by fighting, and sustaining injury, they were doing something that felt real - more real than pushing papers in an office. This movie was really popular, which means people respond to it for some reason. I think there's something to notice there.
If you're fighting, especially one-on-one, your goal is clearly defined by beating your opponent. But if you're a small part of a big goal, and especially if you don't know what that goal is, your part can feel pointless. This is somewhat our situation as members of the Church - we're each small parts of a larger body, involved in doing a work that we don't see the end of because it's so much bigger than any of us.
I think part of the implication of the letter to Timothy is - Hang in there. Don't lose sight of the goal you're part of. Know what that goal is. Learn what your part is and do it. And don't let other people's impatience or lack of interest make you forget what you're about.
AND - Fight the good fight.

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Given to St. John's, Silsbee
Oct. 21, 2007

About cheating

Year C - Pentecost, Proper 20
Readings: Amos 8:4-7(8-12); 1 Timothy 2:1-8; Luke 16:1-13; Psalm 138


Lord, may we know your word, speak your word, and love your word. Amen.Today’s OT and Gospel readings both talk about cheating.
Basically, if you’re cheating anyone, stop it - especially if you’re cheating poor people or anyone at a disadvantage to you.
The message in Amos is very harsh toward people cheating the poor.
‘Hear this, you who trample the needy… The Lord has sworn… "I will never forget…"’Amos describes some methods people were using in his day to increase their profits by tricking or cheating their customers.
"Skimping the measure, boosting the price, and cheating with dishonest scales…selling even the sweepings with the wheat."Methods are the same today – for example, next time you get gas, notice the sticker on the pump that certifies the pump has been checked to ensure it pumps a gallon of gas for a gallon of gas.
And when I pay $.75 for a bag of chips from the vending machine, and 2/3 of it is air, with 5 chips in the bottom, I feel like someone is skimping the measure.
Now, a popular method of ‘boosting the price’ seems to be tacking on lots of little fees and surcharges for things you didn’t request but didn’t know you had to exclude.
Then there’s the whole area of financing, which invariably ends up making people with less money pay a lot more. Currently, the issue of sub-prime mortgages has been in the news a lot. From what I gather, these are high-risk, high-interest loans made to people who probably really can’t afford to buy a home – and sure enough, most of them couldn’t pay, especially with the high interest. Now, their houses are being foreclosed on, and that whole area of the market has collapsed, sending other sectors of the economy into a tailspin.
Who’s most affected by this? People who can least afford it.
By way of contrast, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize went to an economist who developed a system of micro-lending to help very poor people start businesses. These loans have been so successful that whole sectors of the economies in many developing nations have been strengthened.
It’s not a matter of money – it’s a matter of the lender’s motives.
It’s a matter of justice.
What about credit cards? How are credit cards marketed?
They’re often presented as sources of cash flow – offered to people who have very little cash… like college students. When I was in college, credit card companies would set up tables in the SUB and give away ‘free’ stuff to people filling out applications. Talk about ‘buying…the needy for a pair of sandals"…
So, in addition to tuition, room and board (which we took out loans for), students were encouraged to rack up additional expenses on credit cards with high interest rates. Pretty much every college student I know is at least up to their eyeballs in debt, and even if they find a good job, they’ll spend a substantial chunk of their lives paying it back.
In the meantime, what if they need to buy a house? …. Remember, the housing market has basically collapsed.
And these are college graduates – what’s the situation for people without a degree?
And there’s no time to talk about who doesn’t have health insurance or what you learned about the insurance on your house after Rita…Many things in our society are unbalanced – usually in the favor of whoever has the money, power, or influence. Think Jack Abramoff… and the influence of lobbies on the laws that get made.
If you’re going to oppress or neglect someone, it’s easiest to oppress or ignore the people who are without representation – the poor, the weak, the uneducated, the powerless – because they don’t fight back as much.
BUT, they do have a key advocate. God seems to have a particular concern and care for these folks. And as the Church, we’d better be looking out for them, too. We’d certainly better NOT be contributing to injustice against them.Many times, particularly in the prophets, God’s word is that he doesn’t care about sacrifices and ceremonies – not if the rest of the week is full of injustice. Earlier in Amos, the prophet delivers this message from the Lord:
I hate, I despise your festivals, / and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…
Take away from me the noise of your songs; / I will not listen to the noise of your harps.
But let justice roll down like waters, / and righteousness like an ever-rolling stream.Over and over again, God’s theme is Justice:
"And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice…." (Micah 6:8)But cheating perverts justice, turns it upside down, makes it meaningless.
And if we, as Christians, representing Christ (because we do) – if we cheat people, especially disadvantaged people, not only does it destroy their trust in us personally, but they can associate our behavior with the Church, and with Christ – and they can decide that, if that’s what Christianity is, they want nothing of it.
They’re chased away from hope because they don’t hear, don’t see evidence in us of God’s particular care for the poor, the sick, the weak, and the lonely.
If we, who profess to know and follow God, commit injustice, this puts a barrier in front of people who need hope in God more than anything else - and that’s inexcusable.
This may sound like overkill if all the injustice you did this week was cheat on your math homework.
But part of the message from Luke’s gospel is that, unless they stop – and turn around – little cheaters grow to be big cheaters.
It’s only a matter of time and degree from cheating on tests to cheating on taxes.
The mindset that justifies it and the basic pattern are the same.
As a person gains more responsibility, cheating has wider ramifications.
Think about Enron. How many people lost their jobs? How many lost their retirement?
So if you’re cheating at anything, stop now.
If you’re not – don’t start.In light of all this, the gospel reading from Luke sounds pretty odd.
Here’s a story of a guy who gets fired for cheating his boss, and then his boss compliments him for how clever his cheating was.
What was Jesus trying to say by telling this story?
And why did he pick a cheater as the main character?I don’t know, but my theory is maybe he wanted to show that he knows what kinds of things people get into, and he’s not shocked that people cheat.
When we cheat, God’s not shocked; God knows us already better than we know ourselves. He knows, and he’s not shocked. God can even appreciate the ingenuity and talents we used to do it, since God’s the one who gave us those gifts, but it’s a shame for us to use them on schemes instead of doing something good with them.
It’s also a shame if we don’t use our gifts for anything at all – maybe thinking the only thing we can offer to the church is the gift of being ‘nice’ while we’re here. But there are a lot of attributes natural to each one of you that really contribute to the life and health of the church.
What if you’re not necessarily that nice, but you’re strong? Great! We have heavy stuff.
What if you’re funny? Excellent – there are people here who could use a laugh.
What if you’re good at soccer? What if you know all about horses? What if you can explain complicated things? What if you think about things in simple terms? What if you plan things? What if you read, write, paint – draw, sing, or dance?
Fantastic! Obviously God thinks the church needs it, because he gave it to you and brought you here.Part of Luke’s commentary on the story of the dishonest manager is to say basically that ‘it’s a shame the world is more creative than the church is…’
It’s true –
How much time and money and artistic talent – genius even – go into making a Super Bowl commercial to get people to drink beer or change their car insurance?
How much goes into trying to get people to come to church?People are capable of amazing feats of ingenuity and persistence. Think of anybody who’s dating. Guys and girls both will do all kinds of clever, creative, crazy things to impress a date. Did you see the movie 50 First Dates ? - perfect example.
What if that kind of creativity were given toward honoring God? If we think about how we’re spending our time and creativity now, then cut out the worthless and bad things (which God’s not shocked about because He already knows)
What would we do differently?
Think about it – Make some changes
And let’s see what God will do with us.

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Given to St. John's, Silsbee
Sept. 23, 2007