Friends vs. Followers (Proper 21A)

 

Friends vs. Followers

25 September 2011

Proper 21A

Beijing China

Exodus 17:1-7; Psalm 78:1-4, 12-16; Philippians 2:1-13; Matthew 21:23-32

When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as he was teaching, and said, "By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?" Jesus said to them, "I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?" And they argued with one another, "If we say, `From heaven,' he will say to us, `Why then did you not believe him?' But if we say, `Of human origin,' we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet." So they answered Jesus, "We do not know." And he said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.


"What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, `Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' He answered, `I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, `I go, sir'; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him." (Matt 21:23-32)

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.
 

Last week when I was in Wuhan, Hubei province, I had an interesting experience.  At dinner, I noticed that one of my table companions, a senior official of the Hubei provincial government, was wearing a beautiful carved wood Buddhist prayer chaplet around his wrist.  Knowing that this man must be a member of the Chinese communist party, and that one must affirm absolute atheism in order to become a member of the party, I innocently asked him, “Oh, those are nice beads.  Are you a Buddhist?”   His body  stiffened and I could see that he was quickly working through in his mind the implications of such a question from me.  He relaxed, and then said, smiling, “I’m not sure I count as a Buddhist (fotu) per se. Say rather I am a friend of the Buddha (foyou).” 

His reply, as clever as it was, got me thinking.  We like to say we are Christians, or disciples or students of Christ.  But are we Christ’s friends?  

Jesus, just before his death, told his disciples that they were his friends, not his servants (John 20).  He was giving his life for them, and he wanted them to know that this was not the action of a teacher for his students, or a founder of a religion for his followers.  It was the action of a friend, out of love for his friends. 

Today’s Gospel reading is a parable about two sons, one who says he will obey his father and then doesn’t and one who says he won’t, and then does.  Jesus clearly condemns the first and praises the second. 

Many people in the world today say they are Christians.  They say they study and follow his teachings, his commands, his rules.  And they condemn those who are not as diligent in this, who are not good disciples. 

But Jesus said many times that we must not judge others because we know that we have been forgiven great errors and failings. 

Jesus said many times that a sinner who recognizes his or her fault and needs God is far closer to God’s Reign than the person who follows all the rules and is thankful because he is better than others. 

Jesus told many jokes which had as their butt the pious and the self-important. 

It was precisely this contempt of Jesus for the righteous religion of the rule keeper that got him in such hot water with the local religious authorities.  “He hangs out with drunks, whores, and traitors.”  They said.  He said, “it is the sick who need a doctor, not well people.” 

The religious authorities arranged to have Jesus killed by the Imperial Power then in charge (Rome) when they just couldn’t deal with him any more. 

People who say they are Christian and who do not actually internalize and practice what Jesus did, and how he saw the world, are like the first son. 

People who might not be so righteous, but end up trying to follow the behavior Jesus modeled, not out of a desire to keep the rule, but out of a sense of obligation of friendship and love, are like the second son. 

In the traditional Roman Catechism, faith is described as “an act of the will assenting to that which is revealed by God, because of the authority of the revealing God.”   Faith is accepting God’s words precisely because it is from God that they come.   

The point is well taken—accepting what God tells us simply because it pleases us, or because we already agree, this is not faith.  It is a simulacrum of faith.  It is not religion, but boutique religion.  It is not seeking God’s will.  It actually is simply seeking our own desires and tarting them up as if they were God’s. It will not lead us beyond ourselves, or ultimately anywhere good. 

Those who take this definition of faith--assent because of authority--literally and all by itself generally end up painting a gloomy picture indeed of faith.  It becomes an act of submission in what appears to be an abusive relationship: "submit to me because I am God and you are not, or burn in hell."  Such an act of “faith” robs us of any autonomy, of any free will, of any human dignity, and necessarily makes us part of an army of robot victim souls. 

Is accepting God’s word on the authority of the revealing God bound to make us such victim automatons?   No. 

For, you see, there are two kinds of authority that one can base acceptance on:  authority because of position, rank, and recognized reliability, or authority that comes from who one is, and what one’s relationship to us is.  The first is the authority of a corporal commanding a military unit that he has just been assigned to.  The soldiers obey him because of the position he holds, not because of who he is.  But there is another kind of authority, the authority of the physically brave private who charges the enemy lines, and whom everyone else follows because they are inspired by the example.  They follow him because of who he is, not because of what position he holds.

Our faith, our trust in God must be based on the latter kind of authority. 

It is why Jesus calls us to be his friends, not his slaves. 

It is why Jesus describes God's reign as a treasure buried in a field that we joyfully sacrifice all else to possess.

Jesus in today's parable is suggesting here that ultimately, those who proclaim they are God’s followers will fail in following God’s will, while those who are God’s friends will, despite all their failings (or perhaps because of them), succeed. 

The principle here is found throughout scripture:  the first shall be last and the last first.  The tax collector praying for forgiveness from God is closer to God that Pharisee with a cold proud heart who prays to thank God he is not like "that sinner over there."  In today’s Hebrew Scripture lesson, it is only in the desert dryness that God can make the rock split and bring forth water. In the epistle, the “mind of Christ” that Paul wants us to emulate is described as an emptying of self-seeking and full trust in (friendship with) God.  In the Gospel, Jesus says to his opponents,  “Traitors and whores will go into the Kingdom before you,” precisely because his opponents want to base their faith on the authority of position and rules rather than the trust of friendship. Note that the whole passage begins with a dispute over "authority." 

 So just as that man in Wuhan was a “friend,” not a “disciple” of Buddha, I think that Jesus in this parable and others is calling us to be his friend, not his simply his follower.  Because declared followers tend to focus on instrumentalities and rules, and thus tend to disappoint their masters.  But friends, despite problems and failings, tend to come through in the end and make their masters—no, make that their friends--happy with them. 

So let’s pay attention to our friend, Jesus.  Let's pay attention to his tastes, what he likes, and what he doesn’t like.  Let’s pay attention to the kind of company he keeps and do likewise.  Let’s let him be our friend, and take us from where we are to where we ought to be, regardless of our or other people’s opinions of where that may be.

And let’s stop condemning others when we have so much about ourselves that could be condemned.  Let's forgive others since we have so much ourselves that God has forgiven.

In the name of Christ, Amen.

Ten years Ago (Personal Note)

Personal Note--

Ten Years Ago

I was working at the Department of State in the Public Diplomacy regional office of the East Asian and Pacific Bureau, living in North Chevy Chase, Maryland.  

 I needed to go to Seoul Korea for three weeks to prepare for and carry out a program.  At that time, Narita Airport in Tokyo was a grim, unpleasant place to spend more than 1 hour on transit.  (This has since changed—I now LOVE going through Narita on 12-14 hour trans-Pacific flights, if only for the shower/shave/nap in the hour-rate hotel in the terminal and the great sushi opposite Gate 33 in the International Terminal).  At any rate, I wanted to avoid Narita at all costs, and booked a flight accordingly—an early, early morning flight on September 11 out of Dulles airport through Los Angeles, on direct to Seoul.

About a week before my departure, I had a very pointed argument with my dear wife Elena about—what  else?—money and family finances.  We had two kids in college and one just about to start and it was a sore topic.  We both emotionally kind of shut down, and Elena stopped talking much to me. 

Knowing I was about to leave for three weeks, and that my schedule required me to get up at three a.m. to meet an airport shuttle, I knew that I was going to leave that morning unable to have a breakfast or chat of any kind with my wife.  And I did not want to go off for three weeks on opposite sides of the world not on speaking terms. 

So I asked my secretary to change the booking for later in the morning, so Elena and I could wake up and have breakfast together before I left.   

The booking that came up was a noon flight out of Reagan National through San Francisco, then Narita, then Seoul.  Not good, but I wanted that time at home.

The morning of my flight, I got up at our regular time, and had a nice breakfast with Elena.  We had started to talk again.  Both of us knew it was important to connect before a separation of three weeks. 

I had a cab pick me up at 9:15 a.m for the 12 noon flight from Reagan/ National.  We headed down Rock Creek Parkway, that gem of an urban park that looks like the wild woods down the middle of metropolitan Washington D.C. 

Twenty or thirty minutes later, as we emerged from the Park onto the broad bottom-lands of the Potomac near the Kennedy Center and Georgetown, my Pakistani driver and I noticed a lot of smoke coming from across the river, in Arlington.  It looked like the Pentagon was on fire, but that couldn’t be.   There were lots of sirens too. 

Just as we took the turn onto the 14^th Street Bridge across the Potomac, a Park Police car cut in front of us and stopped us, the first car stopped as they shut down all traffic across the bridges. 

“Please officer, can you let us get over?  One last car?   Otherwise I’ll be late for my flight at Reagan.” 

“You won’t be flying anywhere today.  The FAA just shut down all air traffic in the continental U.S.  Haven’t you been listening the radio?” he added, suspiciously eyeing my distinctly Middle-Eastern-looking cabbie, “the nation’s under attack.  The Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon just minutes ago.” 

I thought for a moment that I needed to have the driver take me to the State Department, but realizing that major federal buildings were being evacuated, told the driver to take me back to my home.   It took 30 minutes to come down from there, but five hours to get back.  Cell phones were not working.  The traffic of the city quickly slowed to full gridlock. 

Listening to the radio in the car now, I felt a terrible chill when the details started coming out.  I checked my travel papers in my briefcase, which still had the original booking listed, the one that my secretary had canceled to give me time for breakfast with my wife. 

It was AA 77, flying Dulles – Los Angeles, the plane that had been crashed into the Pentagon. 

Had I not wanted a few extra minutes to repair things with my wife, I would have been on that plane. 

When I finally got home, we hugged a long time, grateful to be together, to be alive. 

Our son Charlie hugged us as well.  He already knew then that the father of one of his best friends at school, a father who worked in WTC Tower One, was missing.  His remains were never found or identified. 

---

I told this story to a friend here in Beijing yesterday, a Mennonite minister who coordinates relief work in East Asia and is strongly involved in aiding the hungry in North Korea.  He asked, “So what did you learn from this?  What is the take-away?” 

I had often thought about this in the last ten years. 

I guess the easy meaning is that God looked after me and took a bad thing (our argument) and turned it into a good thing (keeping me from dying that day).  There are many, many examples in scripture where God turns bad things into good. 

But that is a little dissatisfying, especially since there were people who were not saved from taking that flight.  I think I heard once that the wife of Ted Olsen, George W. Bush’s Solicitor General, had been booked on AA77 at the last minute.  She died on the flight together with everyone else. 

A simple take-away is that I wanted just a few more minutes with my wife before I took off for three weeks, and the actual result was the blessing of many additional years of sweet, wonderful life.  God gives us way more than we deserve, and God’s blessings are ridiculously overabundant when they come.    But again, there remains the mystery of suffering, the puzzle of those not spared. 

I would be a pathetically ungrateful person if I did not thank God for intervening and keeping me from harm that day.  Because despite the apparent randomness of my changing that ticket booking, it really felt to me like God was looking out over me and my family that day. 

But I would be a pathetically selfish and obtuse person if I did not mourn deeply those not spared,  and wonder at the mystery of a loving almighty and all-good God in a world where true evil and seemingly random horror exists.  I would be a total jerk to feel that I somehow deserved saving and those who died didn’t deserve to be saved. 

I do not believe that randomness and horror—whether it is in the statistics of victims of terrorism, the random victims of natural disasters,  or in the great amount of waste found in natural selection and the evolution of species—is evidence that there is no loving, almighty, all-good God and Maker of us all.  I still believe in providence and in the loving God that Jesus called Father.

The fact that Jesus ended up on a cross is no proof that his faith and hope were empty wishes.  The very fact that he could continue to declare his trust in God while on the cross (read the rest of the psalm beginning “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me” that he recited while hanging there, Psalm 22), the very fact that in the midst of all the randomness and horror that seem to be the norm of human life, our hearts simply will not accept this as right and normal, this to me is evidence that we are not created for this world alone, and that in fact we are children destined for another home which we have never yet seen. 

However that may be, I  have felt that each day in my life in the last ten years has been a grace, an added plus, a blessing from God.  And maybe that is the point—all our times and all our days—of each and every one of us—are graces. 

Thanks be to God.   

9-11 10th Anniverary Prayers

Intercessions for the 10^th Anniversary of the Sept. 11 Terrorist Attacks
 for  U.S. Embassy American Community Commemoration Ceremony 
Beijing, China, Sept. 11, 2011, 8:00 p.m.

All-loving and compassionate God, as we pause today to look back and to look forward, to remember and to commit ourselves, we pray to you, our only defender and author of peace.

Helper and healer of all who suffer, remember all victims of violence—those who died and those injured, those grieving and those grieved for, those who witnessed evil and thus were wounded and scarred—give them rest, and healing, and wholeness.  Remember the works of their hands and the message of their hearts.
God of mercy,
hear our prayer.

Sustainer of hope and giver of courage, bless those whom terror has gripped, those whom horror has robbed of hope and meaning, those whose hearts have grown small because of hurt.  Bring forth water in the desert to quench the thirst of their despair.
God of mercy,
hear our prayer.

 Ambassador Gary Locke and family launch lotus lanterns. 

 
Creator of all, you know our hearts and from you no secret is hidden.   Wash clean our hearts of every enduring anger, hatred, and prejudice.  Calm our hearts with the gift of serenity, and help us accept what we cannot change, no matter how unacceptable it may seem.  Help us to live our best values, and purify them also to be in accordance with your will. 
God of mercy,
hear our prayer.

Defender of the weak, protect those who also help the weak by being first-responders to crisis and disaster.  Bless those who died in this heroic service ten years ago this day: the police, the fire-fighters, the care-givers.  Bless their families and friends who grieve.  Remember the works of their hands and the message of their hearts. 
God of mercy,
hear our prayer.

Creator of the Day of Judgment, you who punish wrong-doing and bless up-right acts, who weigh each and every heart, bring to justice and right desserts those who seek the innocent to do them harm. 

God of mercy,Hear our prayer. 

Victor over Injustice and Evil, protect those who work to build a more just world, and establish peace and tranquility where there is none.  We pray for our political leaders, diplomats, law enforcement officers, intelligence community and military service members, and all who work to bring about an end to the scourge of political, religious, or ethnic terrorism. Protect them and guide them, and grant them wisdom and judgment.  Make them strong and give them courage.  Keep them from harm from the evil they may see, and safeguard them from becoming callous or brutal in the struggle.  May your countenance shine upon them, and the glory of your face smile over their works. 

God of mercy,
hear our prayer.

All-Gracious God, we pray today remembering that we are but dust and ashes, the flower of the grass that fades away in a day.  On you O Lord, we place our trust.  Never let us be confounded.  We say this all for your tender mercy’s sake, AMEN.  

 

Lotus blossom lanterns floating in Embassy reflecting pool during ceremony.