Proper 3A

Before getting into the body of this sermon, I want to set up a bit of the context in which we find this particular set of readings.(This is a fairly long preamble, a once-a-year sort thing.) If you remember that Easter was particularly early this year, and if you put that together with the earliness of Pentecost, then logically it stands that we have more Sundays to fill between now and the end of November when we will finally launch into Advent. If you go to the back of the prayer book, you will see lectionary lists for years A, B and C. You will see on page 897, ‘Proper 3A, the closest to May 25.’ While The Episcopal Church is now using the Revised Common Lectionary which does not always correspond to those readings in the back of the BCP, the way of determining the proper for any given Sunday still remains the same.

But here’s the other curious thing about starting the season of Pentecost so early: the readings we hear today are also appointed for the Eighth Sunday after Epiphany. Again, we don’t always go through eight Sundays after Epiphany so, in most cycles, this set of readings is never used. In my 15 years of preaching, I do not believe I have actually run across this proper! So, let it be an adventure for all of us.

The reason this trivia interests me is that hearing these readings in Epiphany has a very different overtone or emotional affect to me than hearing them now. In Epiphany we stand ready to walk through Lent to the cross; now, we stand on the other side not only of Good Friday, Easter but also Pentecost. Here I can feel confidence, not fear.

There are other overtones as well. Psalm 46* is one of the psalms appointed for the burial office. And the gospel reading is the one we hear on Thanksgiving Day. So as you meditate on these readings throughout the week, think about the overtones and appreciate those notes for how they enrich the passages before you. Consider, too, how appropriate the lectionary-appointed readings can be at a particular moment.

Here endeth the preamble.

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I don’t know how much driving you have been doing recently but filling up my 14 gallon-gas tank has become an exercise in holding my breath. When I first moved here, I used to enjoy the fact that I could fill my car for under $20. In and around 2000, that no longer was possible. These days, I simply shake my head in astonishment? horror? frustration? fear? all of the above? as I watch the little numbers spin ever faster for the same quantity. Now I can’t get by without going over $50, and it wasn’t too long ago, I think, that I thought $40 was wild.

We are all subjected to the same increases of the cost of living, all around from electricity to water to heating oil to food to medical costs and beyond. The aggregate effect is dizzying, disheartening and overwhelming.

A young adult, facing college tuition, room and board and scholarships that cover half of the costs, said to me recently that we should go back to bartering rocks because there are so many here in Vermont. We all could pay for things with rocks, right? Problem is, then you’d need a huge conveyance to get your rocks around and where would you store them all? Still, bartering doesn’t seem that far-fetched these days and is figuratively as old as these hills.

Given these realities, how do we collectively live into the words of today’s gospel that tells us, ‘Do not worry about tomorrow…’? How do we get beyond our little faith (even though the gospel also tells us ‘tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.’) How do we move from a panicked scarcity way of thinking into a faith-based, while always realistic, trust in God’s abundance?

Of all the subjects about which the gospel (and bible) speaks, money shows up the most (not sex as some would have us believe). In a lot of cultures, family systems and churches, money is probably the least talked about because it can be the more explosive topic. Yet Jesus talks incessantly about money, stewardship and discipleship.

John Brackett in On the Pilgrim’s Way: Christian Stewardship and the Tithe says that in the parables about money and the kingdom, the one we have just heard being one as well, Jesus makes clear that God’s values are more important than the values of this world. God promises us that the hidden rewards of God’s kingdom are greater than any material or monetary rewards. However, these rewards lie in the future and are not readily foreseen right now in the present.

Brackett also talks about what following Jesus means as a disciple (which will be the great theme for the readings from Matthew that we will hear the rest of the summer and into the fall):

‘Discipleship requires sacrifice and a willingness to receive benefits from God… Sacrifice and acceptance are basic to the teaching of Jesus.

‘What is the necessary sacrifice? The necessary sacrifice is that of the self…. The parables also make clear that faith is more than simple belief in God. Faith is a willingness to turn one’s history over to the God of history. It is a willingness to put one’s trust in God without necessarily knowing what kind of payoff to expect.… Faith invokes a radical disruption of one’s self determination and the intrusion of God’s will into the historical process. Thus, the faithful person is willing to give himself or herself over to God….’’ (1)

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Reaching that place of self-giving, sacrifice, trust, faith and non-anxiety is a pilgrimage for all of us, especially at this time. We are on a pilgrimage of becoming Jesus’ disciples, trusting, not worrying unduly abut tomorrow but being responsible for today with an eye always toward the inbreaking of God’s kingdom in this world. Finding a place of trust and non-anxiety comes, in part, from living a life of simplicity, a life that spiritually resembles that of the birds or lilies.

I would like to think that living such a life is a bit easier here in Vermont and in particular here (as opposed to Chittenden county, for example). Just this last week I read an article about a young family of four in Austin Texas that is selling everything, even down to the wedding bands the couple wears, in order to live simply. Their new home of simplicity? Vermont. I am realistic enough, however, to know that one can clutter up one’s life easily no matter where one is. I also recognise that some find living a life of simplicity more easily than others. Some are able periodically to clean out all the clutter and start anew, to give away to be less fettered by one’s belongings. That is not one of my attributes. Attaining a simpler life is a life-long pilgrimage for me, though as I get older, it will necessarily become simpler.

Regardless, I have always felt (and here comes the faith part) that no matter how tight my finances are or how bleak my financial picture may look, I always have something to give away — because in my heart I am aware that what I consider scarcity is super abundance for someone else.

You have heard me say again and again the words of Dom Helder Camarra:

‘None are so poor they cannot give; none are so rich they cannot receive.’

I believe in that adage strongly, having seen faith in action such as with my Salvadoran friends or hearing about the man in Cheng Du, China who had lost his house and all he owned in the earthquake yet when presented with some bottled water told the person to find someone who really needed it.

I also believe in a one-liner, ‘Gratitude is the attitude.’ If we live a life of constant gratitude to God for God’s many gifts, a gratitude that is daily, not seasonal or limited to one day a year (Thanksgiving), perhaps that sense of God’s abundance can give us confidence to weather whatever temporal and real economic turmoil there may be. A life of gratitude is not going to bring down the cost of heating oil or gasoline, but it is going to put things back into perspective. We can give thanks because we can give.

The words to hymn 9 remind us, ‘So let the love of Jesus come and set thy soul ablaze, to give and give, and give again, what God hath given thee; to spend thyself nor count the cost; to serve right gloriously the God who gave all worlds that are, and all that are to be.’

With an attitude of gratitude, we then can trust that God ‘knows that we need all these things.’ Out of that freedom, we then can strive for the kingdom of God. And out of that striving we will become increasingly people of faith … and thanksgiving.

END NOTE
(1) John Brackett, On the Pilgrim’s Way: Christian Stewardship and the Tithe (Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 1996), 52-54.

* I mistyped in the bulletin that we were using Psalm 46 and since I was making up the pew lectionary sheets didn't see that in fact, Psalm 131 is the psalm appointed for Proper 3A. Oh well; we'll say Psalm 46 next week too and I will see how many people remember that we had it the previous week.