Sub Specie Aeternitatis (midweek)

 

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

September 30, 2020

Sub Specie Aeternitatis

 

When we hear the word “eternity,” we often misunderstand.  We think it refers to time without beginning or end, to the framework of time we currently live in, but without a start or finish.  Most modern Westerners see time as a line with a general trajectory of past, present, and future, based on our personal experience of cause and effect, action and reaction, and growth and development.  Many ancient peoples and some modern ones in the East see it rather as a cycle, or spiral, where key movements and themes of life are repeated, based on our experience of the seasons and recurring annual natural cycle.  Both views of time can be seen as bounded with beginning or end, or as unbounded, extended forever in both directions.  But this is most definitely not what the word “eternity” means.  It refers rather to the idea of timelessness, of being outside of time, whether linear or circular. 

 

In Genesis 1, God creates not only the objects of the world, but also the framework in which they are placed (days 1-3 are framework, days 4-6, objects adorning the framework).   This includes both space and time.  God, as creator of the cosmos (the Greek word means “adornments”), stands apart from space and time.    In a sense, God is the ground of being, and the sum of all time: “In him we live and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).  And for God, all time is present, what we perceive as past, present, and future.   This is why there is no conflict between prophecy and free will:  God sees all our actions as ever present, and God seeing things does not in any way impose them on us. 

 

Seeing things from the perspective of timelessness, sub specie aeternitatis, is one of the effects of following Jesus, who taught that “today has enough troubles of its own, so don’t worry about tomorrow” (Matt 6:34).  Moments when memories become crystal clear and seem as real as events from today, sudden flashes of insight that show not only how the world might be, but actually will be, living in the moment and being present in our actual lives, aware of the deep effects our life is having on us, and how this will last—all these occur when we view the world sub specie aeternitatis.  And having a faith that takes the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as its starting point means hoping that all will be right with the world.  It means God loves us and saves us while still sinners, and that we always can change for the better.  It means not judging others as if the final word of our worth has been written for ill.   When seen from the perspective of timelessness, it has been written, indeed, but for good. 

 

Grace and Peace. 

Fr. Tony+   

Friends of Jesus (Proper 21A)

 

Friends of Jesus

27 September 2020

Proper 21A

Homily Preached at Trinity Parish Church, Ashland Oregon

8 a.m. Said Mass on the Labyrinth,

10:00 a.m. Said Mass with Cantors & Organ live-streamed from the Chancel

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

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

 

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

 

A few years ago in Wuhan China (yes—that Wuhan, the Corona virus Wuhan), I found myself at a dinner table with local leadership, senior officials of the Hubei provincial government.  One 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, “Nice beads. Are you a Buddhist?”   The word in Chinese literally means “Buddha adherent.”  His body stiffened and I could see that he was quickly working through in his mind how he should answer in front of his party colleagues.  He relaxed, smiled, and said, “I’m not sure I count as an adherent of the Buddha (佛徒, Fótú). I am more a friend of Buddha (佛友, Fóyǒu).” 

 

His clever reply got me thinking.  We say we are Christians, disciples or followers 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: not the action of a master for his followers, but of a friend for his friends. 

 

Today’s Gospel reading describes an argument Jesus had with his detractors about authority, and the parable he gave on the matter: of two sons, one says he will not obey but ends up doing so; the other says he will, but doesn’t. Jesus condemns the second and praises the first. 

 

Many people say they are Christians.  They say they study and follow Christ’s teachings and his commands.  They say they base their politics on him.  They condemn those who they think are not as orthodox or diligent as they, who are not true disciples. 

 

But Jesus said many times that we must not judge others. He said that a sinner who recognizes his or her fault is far closer to God’s Reign than the person who follows all the rules and does not ask how he or she might be wrong.   He told many jokes that had as their butt the pious and the self-important. 

 

Jesus’s contempt for the righteous religion of the rule keeper is what got him in such hot water with the local religious authorities.  “He hangs out with drunks, sex-workers, and traitors.”  They said.  He said, “the sick need a doctor, not the healthy.”  And the authorities arranged to have Jesus killed by the Imperial Power 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 taught and did, are like that second son.  People who might not consciously have faith, and are not so righteous, but love Jesus and wish they could be closer to his heart of love are like the first son.   

 

Elsewhere in Matthew, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’  Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’” (Matt 7:21-23).

 

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.”   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 spirituality.  It is not seeking God’s will.  It actually is simply seeking our own desires and dolling them up as if they were God’s. It will not lead us beyond ourselves. 

 

But taking this definition of faith--assent because of authority--literally and all by itself generally ends up with a gloomy picture of faith: an act of submission in what appears to be an abusive relationship.  “I am God and you are not, submit to me or burn in hell.”  “Faith” so narrowly conceived robs us of any autonomy and human dignity, and makes those who believe an army of robot victim souls. 

 

But we can accept God’s word on the authority of the revealing God without becoming such automatons, simply by understanding faith more broadly than simply an act of submission.   

 

In traditional iconography, you portray master and disciple by showing the student looking to the teacher, and the teacher looking beyond the horizon.  The Roman Catechism’s definition of faith has us as student and teacher. 

 

But lovers are shown by having them look into each other’s eyes. Most contemplative traditions and many parts of scripture see faith as tenderness and faithfulness between two lovers. 

 

And friends are pictured side by side, looking in the same direction: they share common passions, interests, and goals, while remaining different enough to make the friendship mutually challenging and attractive. When Jesus says we are his friends, he sees us sharing with him his passion for the Reign of God: a common vision, direction, and concerns.  Submission to authority or mutual personal attraction are not the central piece here:  the key is sharing one’s view of the world and passions. 

 

Jesus wants us to be his friends, not his slaves.  This is why he 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 that ultimately those who loudly and confidently insist they are God’s servants usually fail in following God, while those who quietly share God’s hopes and dreams, despite all their doubts and failings (or perhaps because of them), succeed. 

 

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 friendship with God.  In the Gospel, Jesus says to his opponents,  “Traitors and sex-workers will go into the Kingdom before you,” precisely because his opponents base their faith on claims to authority- based rules rather than the deep trust of friendship.

 

So just as that man in Wuhan was a “friend,” not a “disciple” of Buddha, I think that Jesus is calling us to be his friend, not his simply his follower. 

 

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

 

Jesus says: Don't Wear Tin Foil Hats

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

Jesus says: Don’t Wear Tin Foil Hats

September 24, 2020

In the readings for Morning Prayer earlier in the week, we came across a passage that made me think of all the conspiracy theorists we have in our country, tearing it asunder by us-and-them blame gaming: 

^“11For the Lord spoke thus to me while his hand was strong upon me, and warned me not to walk in the way of this people, saying:¹²Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what it fears, or be in dread.¹³But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.¹⁴He will become a sanctuary, a stone one strikes against; for both houses of Israel he will become a rock one stumbles over a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.¹⁵And many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken” (Isaiah 8:11-20). 

The greatest problem with conspiracy theories is that at root they are so illogical and unreasonable: the absence of evidence is taken as evidence of just how deep the conspiracy runs. Jesus tells us, of course, to be smart as snakes and harmless as doves, but conspiracy theories are not smart in the least: they are dumb, despite all evidence.

In this era of wanting to be a united nation once more, a good first step is stop spinning and repeating conspiracy theories.  I believe it is what our baptismal covenant tells us to do when we affirm that we will seek out Christ in all our fellow human beings. 

Grace and Peace. 

Fr. Tony+  

When Helping Hurts (Proper 20A)

 

When Helping Hurts

(Proper 20A)

10:00 a.m. Sung Mass live-streamed from the Chancel 

20 September 2020

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Parish Church of Trinity Ashland (Oregon)
Jonah 3:10-4:11 Psalm 145:1-8 Philippians 1:21-30 Matthew 20:1-16

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

 

 

In Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel, The Help, there is a scene that chills my heart.  Yule May is a college-educated woman, but because she is African-American in Jim Crow Mississippi, the best job she can find is as a maid to one of the town’s most hateful characters, Hilly Holbrook, a southern belle on a campaign to keep people of color in their place and further tighten Jim Crow laws.  When Yule May is short $75 – the difference between sending both her twin sons to college and sending only one – she asks her employer for a loan to be repaid in two months.  Hilly refuses her the money.  It is her rationale that is so chilling:  “[One day you will thank me.  A] true Christian [doesn’t] give in charity to [the] well and able. Say it’s kinder to let them learn to work things out themselves” (p. 163).  Hilly’s appeal to Christian love as the reason for not helping rings hollow.  It is clear she has no love at all for her maid or her twin boys, or for any of the other domestics whose lives she makes so miserable, day after day.  While she says she is no racist, she helps people of African descent only if they are far away, preferably orphans in Africa.   Presumably, they, at least, know their place. 

 

We often hear such appeals to high-sounding values to justify not helping those in need.  Some talk of the culture of dependency assistance can generate, and label it “toxic charity.”  While based in the truth of the unintended consequences of a thoughtless generosity, it too rings hollow when repeated regularly to shut down doing good for others in need.  Others talk of the need to avoid socialism or big government and use this as a way of shutting down even effective government programs to provide for basic needs, including food and housing for the poor and health care the vast majority of our people.  When coupled with a claim that such an appeal is “Christian,” or “biblical,” it too rings hollow:  The psalms and proverbs, as well as the prophets, say that caring for the poor and being fair to all is not only our common human duty, but is also the responsibility of kings, magistrates, and governments. 

 

I must admit:  in my experience, those argue against government assistance generally give at a higher rate, both in gross and as a function of each person’s individual resources, than do those who argue for it as a first recourse.   Both sides share blame here.  Both appear to be trying to salve their own conscience and not actually help, to show pity, not empathy or compassion.    

 

Today’s gospel’s parable of the workers, describes how day laborers get very angry when they believe they have been treated unfairly by a well-meaning but clueless land-owner. Like the king in last week’s parable of the unforgiving servant, the landowner here is one of the careless rich, oblivious to the realities of what the rabbis then called the people of the land, and some of our own compatriots call illegals.    

The landowner can’t be bothered to go through the math of prorating the workday.  As little as he is paying these workers, it is simpler just to give all the workers the same wage, whether they have worked a hard eight hours in the heat of the day, or only an easy hour at the end of the day in the crush to get the harvest in before sunset.   That is why the workers protest: they are being paid such a pittance that the landowner is willing to throw their entire day’s wage at the newcomers for convenience sake only.  They want more.  The protest of those who have born the heat of the day is a revolt against what they see as an unfair and demeaning personnel policy. 

The fact that there are plenty of people at 5 p.m. still waiting at the marketplace for work explains why the wages are so low:  in a market economy, supply and demand rules.  There is such an overabundance of people needing work that the landowner can pay as little as he finds convenient, or as much as he finds least troublesome. 

Jesus’ parable asks us to wonder about what is fair. One of the underlying assumptions in the story is people’s need for a living wage.
 
The Gospel of Matthew takes this parable and turns it into an allegory.  Those who have worked long and born the heat of the day represent one group of people, the newcomers another, and the landowner perhaps God.  Those who have born the heat of the day are seen as stingy and heartless to the newcomers.   It is part of Matthew’s preaching to his own community’s Jewish members to accept newly believing Gentiles.  “Don’t be stingy with God’s grace to others and don’t question it if God is easier on others than he has been on you!” is the lesson Matthew takes from the parable. 

I am not sure if such allegorizing does justice to this simple story that presents so many questions.  But Matthew asks us how stingy we are with God’s grace to others.  And in this, it is wholly in line with Jesus’ idea that we mustn’t demean or objectify others, belittle their efforts and hopes, or base our ideas of fairness on a mathematical formula that determines worth by the marketplace rather than by need.  

No matter how you read the parable—as a criticism of the resentful workers or as a criticism of the careless rich landowner—the story is about generosity.  “Are you envious because I have shown generosity?” asks the landowner at the end of the story.

 

The problem is that generosity can be uplifting and live-saving, or soul-crushing and alienating.   Receiving help can be ennobling or destructive. 

 

Some people are easy to help, and a pleasure to assist.  They are grateful, taking nothing for granted, and wanting to “pay it forward” by helping others.  But others you may help provoke fear that they will try to rip out your fingernails as you touch hands to give them aid.   The difference is whether they themselves are grounded, and secure enough to know to respect boundaries between the giver and the receiver.   Being broken by need makes it hard to receive aid graciously. 

 

But being broken by greed makes it impossible to help without hurting.  Some people can give generously to ennoble and dignify those they help, while others’ shows of generosity can demean and dehumanize.  The difference is whether you respect the dignity of each person, knowing that “there, but for the will of God, go I.”    Recognizing our common humanity, our fundamental equal value, is necessary if help is avoid toxicity. 

 

Instead of asking “are you envious because I show generosity?”  the landowner perhaps should be asking how to truly show helpful generosity by paying a living wage, one high enough that he is forced to do the bookwork of prorating for latecomers.   Being fair hearted is the core issue here:  treating others as you would be treated. 

 

The death this week of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg underscores this:  according to rabbinic tradition, those who die on Rosh-hashanna are righteous, the upright.   Justice Ginsberg’s great work in life was congruent with her faith and upbringing:  fairness is necessary first of all, whether in law or in life.  She once wrote, “Judaism is an ethical religion.  We treat others fairly, we do what’s right, not because we hope for a reward in the afterlife, but because it is what we must do.”

 

The philosopher Simone Weil argues that the cry of “Why am I being hurt?” lies behind all appeals to human rights. To refuse to hear this cry of affliction, Weil continues, is the gravest injustice, the worst sin, we might commit. 

 

We face great need in this valley because of the fires, the smoke, and the pandemic.   In all we do, may we seek the dignity of all we assist by recognizing need alone is what makes us worthy of aid.  And may we graciously accept help from others. 

 

In the name of Christ, Amen 

 

 

Have I Done Any Good? (Midweek Message)

 

     Grace Warr Hutchinson in 1959 with three of her children, Cheryl, Tony, and Debbie.

Have I done any Good?

Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message

September 16, 2020

 

One of my mother’s favorite hymns was a gospel tune that appeared in the Latter-day Saint hymnal of my youth, “Have I done Any Good?”  She would sing it to us each night as she tucked us in bed.  She was always challenged in faith, but this song summed up her most basic hope and trust.  It is a bit formulaic and cheesy, and, perhaps, Pelagian in its theology.  But it was the faith she transmitted to her children, including me.  A measure of how powerful that daily recitation was is this:  I am reproducing it from memory.  When I retire at night, I still sometimes sing it to myself quietly.  Our current situation in the Rogue Valley brought to my mind the phrase, “there are chances for work all around just now,” and from there, came a memory of the whole song.  The point is doing what we are able, without taking credit or assigning guilt:  rather than complaining about what others might be doing, or doing things that make us or others feel good about us, we need to act to help people in need.  Rather than worrying about big picture things, make a phone call, a human connection, something one on one.  Sometimes just listening is enough.  In any case, connect on a human level, identify need, and address it.  

 

“Have I done any good in the world today?

Have I helped anyone in need?

Have I cheered up the sad, and made someone feel glad,

If not I have failed indeed.

Has anyone’s burden been lighter today

Because I was willing to share?

Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way;

When they need my help was I there? 

Then wake up and do something more than dream of your mansion above.

Doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure,

A duty of service and love. 

 

“There are chances for work all around just now,

Opportunities right in our way.

Do not let them pass by, saying sometime I’ll try,

But go and do something today. 

‘Tis noble of man to work and to give

Love’s labor has merit alone; 

Only he who does something is worthy to live

The world has no need for the drone. 

[I am told that the most recent LDS hymnal has changed this line to “To God each good deed will be known,” presumably because damning non-productive drones was too discouraging.]

Then wake up and do something more than dream of your mansion above.

Doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure,

A duty of service and love.” 

music to "Have I done any good"  

Grace and peace. 

Fr. Tony+ 

Hope from the Ashes (Proper 19A)

 

Remains of a mobile home park in Talent, Oregon.  photo: Brandon Swanson / OPB

Hope from the Ashes

(Proper 19A)

10:00 a.m. Said Mass Live-streamed from the Chancel

13 September 2020

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Parish Church of Trinity Ashland (Oregon)
Genesis 50:15-21; Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13; Romans 14:1-12; Matthew 18:21-35

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

 

Ten households in our parish family lost their homes this week to the Almeda wildfire.  Between a third and a half of the parish was evacuated, some multiple times, having to flee not only from their homes but from their safe sheltering locales as well.  One family took refuge with friends, and when their own evacuation was lifted and a new one was imposed in their new shelter, returned to their homes with their sheltering hosts in tow, now hosting them. Talent and Phoenix were largely devastated.   Many of the neighborhoods totally destroyed were among the few affordable housing options in this valley, and many of the now homeless were already among the most vulnerable of our community, with little or no insurance, many having to keep working during the pandemic for want of bread.  As today’s parable suggests, in this world, the rich get richer and can afford to put on a show of compassion, while the poor, whether stingy or compassionate, seem only to get poorer.   And now we cannot breathe.  Covid-19, isolation, fear of contagion, and now firestorms and slow suffocation—2020 has turned out to be what the Romans called an annus horribilis: a year to make your skin crawl.  None of us are asking any more when things might return to normal, for “normal” has been emptied of its meaning.  Our society is riven with hatred and division, increasingly armed and tribal: where most disasters bring communities together, and those directly affected so far have come together beautifully, in our larger community, false accusations are flung with impunity at those considered the enemy—the left blames the fires on proud boys with tiki torches; the right, antifa rioters with Molotov cocktails.    But this deep schism in our common life is, perhaps,  karmic payback for a caste system of privilege and plundered wealth and power based on what family you are born into and your imputed color.  Nature itself seems to be revolting and pushing back on us who have plundered the wealth of the earth with little heed to its health and the sustainability of our practices.  The governor said this was a once in a hundred year event, but boy, it sure feels maybe like the new normal with climate change caused by a whole society’s careless pursuit of wealth. 

 

   Jackson County District 5 firefighter Captain Aaron Bustard works on a smoldering fire in a burned neighborhood in Talent, Oregon, U.S. on September 11, 2020. /AP

One parishioner asked after noon mass on Thursday: “How could a loving God let this happen?”   I glibly asked back, “What is it that makes you think this is abnormal or wrong?  It is the very image of God left in you at creation that tells you this is not normal, is not right, and is wrong, wrong, wrong.” But another parishioner, one certain that her home was lost, replied wisely, with the authority of faith in the midst of suffering, “I have seen more love and compassion in these last three days that I had seen for years before.”  Graciously, it later turned out her home had somehow been spared from burning to the ground.    

 

St. Paul writes the following in 2 Corinthians:

 

“So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer selves are withering away, our inner selves are being renewed each and every day. For our current bit of suffering—so light as to be almost nothing—is kindling in us a glory weighty beyond any comparison, because we are looking not at what is before our eyes, but at what is hidden from our eyes; for what can be seen passes quickly away, but what cannot be seen lasts forever.…  It is God who has given us hints of this bright future, by giving us his Spirit as a down payment of what’s ahead”  (2 Cor. 4:16-17; 5:1-5).

 

Paul is not trying here to disparage the world in which we live.  Remember that when God made the world, God saw it and said it was good indeed.  Elsewhere, Paul says he sees plenty of evidences in the world of God’s good intention and love in the world.  What Paul is talking about is how things seem when we are suffering and finding it hard to see any good before our eyes. 

 

Paul is not trying to say that our sufferings are not real or truly bad.  And he is not saying the world needs to be ignored.  He is contrasting how things now appear with how things actually are.  He is saying feel the sorrow at suffering, but also feel the joy of the grace that God continues to show each day despite the bad. 

 

For Paul, the hidden “eternal weight of glory” is actually the real thing, while our suffering, all too clear before our eyes, is but a dim shadow that is passing away.    The image in our hearts of what God has promised, and what God is already actually accomplishing in us, drives away the demons of hopelessness and helplessness that threaten to beat us down. 

 

Paul tells us to contemplate the “invisible things” which do not change instead of the “things before our eyes” that do.  For him, the ultimate reassuring image is God’s love in suffering alongside us.  Paul says he preaches only, “Christ, Christ on the Cross”:  it is because this man of sorrows is the same as the glorious Risen Lord.

 

I began a silly little practice when Covid-19 broke out:  to make sure I wash my hands long enough, each time I wash, I sing two verses of a metrical form of Psalm 100 (to the tune Old One Hundredth): 

 

“All people that on earth do dwell,

Sing to the Lord with gladsome voice,

Serve him with mirth, his praise forth tell,

Come ye before him and rejoice!

Know this: the Lord is God indeed.

We are his own, he did us make. 

We are his folk, he doth us feed,

And for his sheep he doth us take.” 

 

I am so thankful for this practice.  It has allowed me to see a great truth:  a “mixed state” of emotion, joy and sorrow mixed, is not simply a symptom of mental illness.  It is also a gift of grace in hardship.  Elena, with her Parkinson’s disease, has had many of her emotional control systems taken from her, and sometimes she weeps, but is not sure if it is for joy or for sorrow.  It is usually perhaps both.  A blending of joy and sorrow is perhaps the right place for a person of faith when suffering.  Psalm 100, for all its talk of mirth and joy, was written by someone who suffered much, and yet kept joy in seeing God’s hand at work in all things, even the suffering. 

 

As Mister Rogers used to say, “when bad things happen, look for the helpers.”  As Paul says, keep your eyes fixed on the eternal goodness of God even in this current horror.  As we say in the Prayer Book funeral office, “Even at the grave, we sing, Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.”    

 

We have been reading this last week the Book of Job during Morning Prayer.  Its message, loud and clear is this:  Do not curse God and die.  Do not try to rationalize horror, and most definitely do not blame victims.  Rather, like Job, repent in dust and ashes, and love and trust God through it all, through it all.   

 

In the words of two African-American freedom songs, we must “keep our eyes on the prize,” our “hands on the plow.” We must, simply, “hold on, hold on.”    Phoenix, like the mythological bird it is named after, will rise again from the ashes, in new life and vigor.  Talent, whose name is shared by the units of money in that parable about proper stewardship, will rebuild and prosper again through the efforts of all who want to truly help.

 

In times like these, it may be hard to see the light. But we must not resign ourselves to being beaten down, must not “lose heart.” See God’s hand at work:  not by blaming God for the unspeakable, but by seeing the grace and glory mingled with the sorrow and by becoming instruments of grace for others.  Strive to be one of Mister Rogers’ “helpers.” 

 

Don’t give up, and don’t give in.  “Come into God’s courts with praise.  Give thanks to him, and call upon his name.  For the Lord is good.  His mercy is everlasting and his faithfulness endures from age to age.” 

Amen. 

 

 

The Labor of Love (Proper 18A)

 

                                                                      Compassionate Christ, by Fr. John Giuliani

 

The Labor of Love
(Proper 18 Year A RCL)
6 September 2020

 8:00 a.m. Said Mass on the Labyrinth,

10:00 a.m. Sung Mass livestreamed from the chancel

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon) 

The Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D. 

Readings: Ezekiel 33:7-11; Psalm 119:33-40; Romans 13:8-14; Matthew 18:15-20

 

God, give us hearts to feel and love,

take away our hearts of stone

 and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

 

 

Today’s Gospel has a set of rules for dealing with conflict.  They seek to help us find our way when relationships among those who walk the way with Jesus go wrong.  You know the basic outline:  first talk to the one who has offended in private.  If that doesn’t resolve it, then go with two other people who can witness the exchange and bring some objectivity to it, and if necessary, assist each party to listen to the other and improve their communication.  Finally, if that doesn’t work and the offender persists, “”they shall be to you as a pagan and a tax collector.”   

 

Well, what does that mean? 

 

A common reading is this:  this is gradual escalation.  Try out a one-one-one talk where public grandstanding can be avoided.  If that’s no good, call in witnesses so they can help to brow beat the offender into submission, to, as Methodists used to say and Baptists still say, “labor with the brother.”   And if that is no good, then kick his sorry behind out of the community altogether.  To me, this understanding is a prettified way of justifying shunning, excluding people from community when we disagree with them.   It seems to bless that most unwelcoming posture: “I wash my hands of you.” 

 

I wonder if that’s a right reading.  We know Jesus said “If someone sins against you seven times in a day and says, I'm sorry, keep on forgiving them seven times" (Luke 17:3-4) and that one form of the saying corrects any misunderstanding we might have by adding, "don’t just forgive seven times, but seventy-seven,” that is, never stop forgiving.  And that original saying is almost certainly from the historical Jesus,  using a striking and memorable turn of the phrase, and its emendation is clearly the creation of the later church trying to make rules out of the legacy of Jesus' sayings.  

 

The saying in today’s Gospel, with its law-like procedural character and concern for rules to run a community, is almost certainly a creation of the author of the St. Matthew Gospel: note that it starts with the words, “if any member in the church offend you.”  Church existed at the time of Matthew, but not in the life of Jesus.   Matthew’s Gospel was written in Syrian Antioch for a mixed Jewish-pagan church, one with lots of conflicts and intercultural strife.  It is trying to create a Standard Operating Procedure for managing church conflict.   But remember this:  Matthew, also called Levi, the disciple of Jesus that this Gospel was always associated with, was originally a tax-collector.  And a major part of the church it is written to are gentiles, or less politely, pagans. 

 

So when it says, “let them be for you a tax-collector or a pagan” I think it is not necessarily saying this is the last straw and you have got to break off all relations with the person.  Rather, it is saying that communication has broken down.  Community has gone by the boards.  The relationship between the offender and the offended had turned out to be a non-relationship, or an antagonistic one, like the relationships of Matthew’s Jewish readers with tax-collectors or pagans.  It is not saying give up on that nasty person because you couldn’t use friendly persuasion or browbeat them into conformity.  It is saying face up to the fact that your relationship is toxic.  Your communication is non-existent. 

 

Why did Jesus teach “never stop forgiving”?  Why did he teach, “don’t give up on someone?   Why did he keep on forgiving, even the worst things? 

 

There is a hint in today’s Hebrew Scripture lesson:  “As I live, says Yahweh God, I take no pleasure when a wicked person dies, but rather when they turn from their ways and live.”   This passage is the scriptural warrant for the Church’s doctrine of the universal salvific will of God, that God wants everyone to be saved, for everyone to come out alright.  It comes from Jesus’ basic description of God as a loving parent, who gives good gifts to all his children.  It is the principal scriptural problem with John Calvin’s doctrine of a double predestination, one to salvation and one to damnation. 

 

The fact that God wishes good for all is the reason in this passage from Ezekiel for the prophets to warn people—it gives them a chance to turn back from the things that will destroy them.  

 

God wants us all to come out okay, and thus we need to help warn people who are going to where things will not be okay.  But this general desire to help and to show love by engaging and being in loving relationship with others can have a distorted form:  where we try to remake all others in our own image.    This is why a desire for the brotherhood and sisterhood of the human family is often corrupted by a proselytizing urge at best or an urge to holy war at worst. 

 

Recognizing a break down in relationship, recognizing that someone has become a stranger to us, an alien, a pagan, or a tax-collector does not mean giving up on them.  Quite the opposite:  it means never stopping to the engage and try to communicate, even when they no longer walk with us.      

 

Never give up.  Don’t wash your hand of anyone.   This has to do with not just the nature of God, all-loving, ever able, desiring life and health and prosperity for all.   It has to do with the nature human beings: always eager to turn things into an us and them game, always ready to confuse the line between good and evil that runs down the middle of each and every human heart with a line between one group of people and another or even one person and another. 

 

Every one of us is divided and mixed;  good and evil war with each other in every one of our hearts.  We need to follow Jesus, and always entice each other to follow the better angels of our natures.  God gives his blessings of sunshine and rain equally on both the godly and the wicked.  God loves us all.  And Jesus tells us we should emulate God in this perfect compassion.  That’s why we should never give up on people, though at times we need break off toxic habits and interactions in our relationships and try for a new restart. 

 

In the name of Christ,  Amen.