The Prophet Heather

Isaiah 5:1-7

I will sing for my beloved
    my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
    on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones
    and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it
    and hewed out a wine vat in it;
he expected it to yield grapes,
    but it yielded rotten grapes.

And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem
    and people of Judah,
judge between me
    and my vineyard.
What more was there to do for my vineyard
    that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
    why did it yield rotten grapes?

And now I will tell you
    what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
    and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall,
    and it shall be trampled down.
I will make it a wasteland;
    it shall not be pruned or hoed,
    and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns;
I will also command the clouds
    that they rain no rain upon it.

For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
    is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
    are his cherished garden;
he expected justice
    but saw bloodshed;
righteousness
    but heard a cry!

Isaiah didn’t have a crystal ball.  He didn’t have a fortune cookie!  Why?  Because Biblical Prophets didn’t tell the future.  What Biblical Prophets did was much more powerful.  They opened their eyes and made connections.  Sometimes they thanked God for that gift.  Other times they yelled at God for it.  But what the Biblical Prophets did, was less like Miss. Cleo and more like Heather Cox Richardson.  

Dr. Richardson doesn’t tell the future either.  She opens her eyes, examines the past, and makes connections.  She has a gift to see the places in history where 2 + 2 have over and over again added up to 4 and then writes to us each day in her 21st century, academic style, telling us, “I see 2 and 2 being added together again in our time, and every time 2 has been added to 2 in history before… like it was here, here, and here… the result has always been 4.  It would be wise if we paid attention to the math happening around us right now!”  

That’s the way the Biblical Prophets worked too.  They didn’t use magic… they used memory.  They opened their eyes, examined the past, and made connections.  They saw where 2 was being added to 2 again and knew that had always added up to 4.  Then they wrote in their own theologically poetic style warning the people that, “it would be wise if we paid attention to the math happening around us right now.”  

Writing styles aside, the gift that Heather Cox Richardson shares with us now, is really not so different from the gift the Biblical Prophets shared with people in their time.  Nor are the themes on which they both write and the warnings both offer.  

Writing in his theologically poetic style, Isaiah told the people of Israel and Judah of the hard, back breaking work that God put into creating their nation.  It was like the work of a vineyard owner… clearing, tilling, planting, building, and carving a wine vat out of solid rock.  All by hand.  After putting in all that work, God had the not unreasonable expectation of getting some grapes.  

The vineyard we learn, is a poetic stand-in for the nation.  The grapes are a metaphor for justice and righteousness… two words that invoke the expansive notion that God expected the nation would build, grow, and develop that vineyard… a.k.a. their nation… into an interdependent people where everyone had enough (enough food, shelter, safety, dignity and purpose) and everyone would live free from abuse and exploitation. 

Writing in her Academic Historical style, Heather Cox Richardson tells us about the hard work that went into creating our nation.  She writes soberly about the arguments, fights, and wars.  She doesn’t sugar coat it.  It was a founding steeped in violence, genocide, and slavery, and she constantly forces us to look clear-eyed at our country’s still unrepentant history of racism, exploitation, and our ongoing mindless fear of the other.  

But the Prophet Heather also writes to us of the idealistic expectations that those admittedly flawed founders had for this nation.  She writes of the backbreaking and all too often deadly work others have done since the founding to move this nation toward the fulfillment of those ideals.  Work done by those who believed this nation could one day really become a nation of genuine equals.  It could, one day, become a nation where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be available to all.  That we would eventually create, grow, and develop into a nation of interdependent people where everyone has enough… and we all would live in a community free from abuse and exploitation, with liberty and justice, not just for some… but for all.  

For the people to whom the Prophet Isaiah wrote, the failure of the nation to deliver justice and give only bloodshed… the failure of the nation to live in righteousness… the failure to live lives that cared for the widow and orphan, the stranger and the immigrant, the poor and the hungry… the least, the lost, and the last of the nation… that failure, Isaiah wrote, would add up, as the math always did across both time and geography, to the complete destruction of their nation.  

Isaiah wasn’t predicting that God would rain fire on them.  Isaiah was telling them they would be the victims of the natural consequences that had befallen EVERY nation in every time that became devoid of justice and righteousness.  2 + 2, Isaiah warned them, would once again come to equal 4.  

For the people to whom the Prophet Heather Cox Richardson writes, the failure of our nation to deliver justice and give only bloodshed… the failure of our nation to live in righteousness… the failure of our nation to genuinely provide liberty and justice for ALL, including the widow and orphan, the stranger and the immigrant, the sick and the dying, the hungry and huddled masses yearning to to be free… that failure, will, if not corrected, lead to the same natural consequences that has befallen EVERY nation, institution, and office that has ever abandoned living and working in justice and righteousness.  2 + 2, Heather warns us, will once again come to equal 4.  She reminds us herself that another Prophet, Abraham Lincoln, once told us clearly…  a house divided against itself, simply cannot stand.  

Biblical prophecy is not magic.  It is memory.  Biblical Prophecy doesn’t tell the future.  It does the math.  May we… as individuals, as a congregation, as the institutional church, and as a nation, hear the words of the Prophets, both old and new, and turn from our destructive ways of retribution and toward lives of genuine justice and honest righteousness, and walk the path which leads to liberty and justice for all, where “all” will one day, really and truly… mean ALL.  Amen. 

"Brood of Vipers" Reprise

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.

“You Brood of Vipers!”  

That’s what John the Baptist called this same group of “suits” who confronted Jesus in the temple in today’s Gospel.  John called them that way back in Chapter 4.  

Back then, John had seen right through this same flag-lapel-pin-wearing, dark money grabbing, Bible verse quoting, syndicate of corrupt politicians.  

He sent them away with some homework from the Prophets:

“Bear fruit worthy of repentance” he said.  

In other words:  No more Posts, Pins, or Prayers!  

No more smooth talk!  

He told them they needed to start walking the walk! 

When this same bunch of “suits” showed up in the Temple in today’s Gospel, Jesus didn’t let them off John's hook.  

“Did you guys even START doing what John told you to do?”

“Did you even LOOK at your homework from Isaiah?”  

Suffice it to say, they had not.  

But what was the Isaiah homework John the Baptist had told that Brood of Vipers they needed to do?

  

Well, in that respect our Secretary of Defense has done us all an unexpected favor this week by calling our attention once again to the Prophet Isaiah and what Isaiah was called by God to do… and by extension… what John the Baptist had called those Suit wearing Snakes to do as well.  

This week, the Secretary embarked on his “Send Me” campaign in which he uses Isaiah 6:8.  

This verse is Isaiah’s response to what God was calling Isaiah to do, which was to confront the nation’s leaders about their rampant corruption, greed and bribe taking.  

To confront their gross abuse of the vulnerable, and their use of religion to mask their over the top injustice.  

God’s call to Isaiah was to let the leaders of the nation know that if they kept doing what they were doing, the whole nation would be brought to complete ruin.  

In STARK (and genuinely blasphemous) contrast, the Secretary of Defense used this same passage, not to STOP corruption and abuse…  but to try and baptize it!  

He used this verse drum up support for an illegal war born right out of a festering pit of corruption, greed, and bribe taking.  

He is trying to make “HOLY” a war that further crushes the vulnerable, both here at home and around the globe, and he’s trying to use religion to mask this over the top injustice!  

The Secretary is using this verse to support the ABSOLUTE OPPOSITE of what Isaiah’s call was all about!

What our Secretary of Defense is doing now, is EXACTLY what led John the Baptist to call his day’s politicians “a Brood of Vipers” and it is that exact same bunch of slick haired politicians that come into the Temple in today’s lesson.  

THAT’S why Jesus brought up John the Baptist!  

Because they still have not done their homework.  

They remain unrepentant.  

They have not yet begun to “Bear Fruit worthy of Repentance” and they are still running the world toward ruin.  

Some of what Jesus says in the Gospels is… admittedly… difficult to decipher… this isn’t.  

This Gospel doesn’t mumble.  

Jesus makes it clear that words and rituals don’t matter when compared to how we care for our neighbors.  If what someone is doing is deeply corrupt and abusive to their neighbors, there are no Bible words that can cover that up… no ritual to make it better.  

The ONLY way to make corruption, greed, and taking advantage of the vulnerable better is…

to STOP DOING IT… to TURN AROUND… and start DOING better!  MUCH… MUCH… MUCH… BETTER.  

You see, for Isaiah, John the Baptist, and for Jesus, faith isn’t about wearing the right suit, holding up a Bible for a photo op, or slapping a Bible verse on something ugly like lipstick on a pig. 

For Isaiah, John the Baptist and Jesus, faith is entirely about DOING THIS LIFE IN SELF-GIVING LOVE… FOR THE OTHER… FOR YOUR NEIGHBOR… FOR ALL YOUR NEIGHBORS… NO MATTER WHERE THEY WERE BORN OR WHERE THEY LIVE… INCLUDING THE NEIGHBORS WE CALL OUR ENEMIES.

Now… everyone loves a good ranting sermon against the powers wielding corruption, greed, bribery, violence, and inhumanity and running our nation into ruin.  

I love writing them.  

You love hearing them.  

And in all seriousness, evil absolutely needs to be named and called out for what it is, or else others might take our silence to be a passive endorsement.  

But having called it out.  Is there anything here in this Gospel for us regular folks?  For those of us gathered here today, beyond just the necessary rant?  

I think there is.  

While nobody sitting here today is going to start an illegal war, make policy that leads people into starvation, or take health care away from three quarters of a million people… I think we are tempted these days to step back from doing the “heart and hand” tangible sorts of things we do to love our neighbor.  

And we’re tempted to step back because… well… we’re tired.

The world is too much!

The world is exhausting and when I’m exhausted I tend to push those “heart and hand” kindnesses I’m called to do further down my to-do list.  

Maybe that’s something you’ve found that you do too?  

Maybe what this Gospel has for us then, is not so much an indictment (as it was for the suits) but an encouragement to help one another NOT put off those tangible… heart and hand ways we are called to love our neighbors any longer.  

To not put off sending that text… checking in with a call… doing that hour of service… inviting so and so to lunch… or dropping off a container of soup.  

I think this Gospel IS telling us we must call out evil.  But I think this Gospel is also telling us not forget to do those seemingly small acts of tangible kindness for our neighbors with our hearts and hands along the way.  

Because while calling out evil is necessary for our existence… Doing kindnesses, no matter how small, are acts of active rebellion against the evil at work in our world and in the end, loving our neighbor is the only thing that makes this life genuinely worth living.  Amen.  

The Tyranny of Certainty

Jonah 3:10-4:11

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

The Lord God appointed a bush and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort, so Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?”

Matthew 20:1-16

Jesus said to the disciples, “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and he said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ So they went. When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same. And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’ When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’ When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received a denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

Jonah was CERTAIN.  The vineyard workers were CERTAIN.  

Jonah became angry when God did not work the way he was CERTAIN God should work… angry enough to die… it says.  

The vineyard workers became angry when the landowner did not pay in the way they were CERTAIN he should pay.  Angry to the point of grumbling… it says. 

Both Jonah and the vineyard workers were CERTAIN they knew how God worked… how God SHOULD work… how God MUST work!  And in these parables, one from the Hebrew Prophets and one from Matthew’s Gospel, we see both Jonah and the vineyard workers crash headlong, at full speed, without a helmet, into the solid brick wall that is human certainty when it encounters things Divine.   

Both Jonah and the vineyard workers both come to their different situations settled in the comfort of their certainty.  Certainty is so tempting because it offers us something both comfortable and comforting.  Think about gravity.  We don’t worry about whether today gravity will be “on” or “off” as we go about our day.  We are certain it will be “on” and that certainty is comforting.  It is always there.  Sometimes gravity results in pain, sure, but that pain always makes sense.  The pain is because we fell.  Because gravity was “on” as it always is.  It makes sense and things that make sense are comforting, even while the bruises are uncomfortable.  

So as each of us and the Divine draw closer, our temptation is, like it was with Jonah and the vineyard workers, to bring the kind of certainty we have about gravity to the Divine encounter as well.  We want God to be both comfortable and comforting… always “on” in the ways we have decided are best or right or fair.    

But what both Jonah and the vineyard workers discover, is that in applying certainty to their encounter with the Divine, in each case, God reveals their certainty to be, not at all a comfort, but something else entirely.  Earlier this week I tried and failed to recover a particular phrase I had heard for what certainty becomes as we move closer to the Divine.  

I never really recovered that one little phrase, but when we move closer to the Divine certainty becomes, not a comfort, but something like “Idolatry” worshiping a “little g” god who does things our way.  That’s a Jason Larson idea.  Or it becomes like a “Sin” as we insist God follow our rules and not be free.  That’s a Peter Enns idea.  Or it becomes an “Addiction” where with each encounter the comfort we seek demands more and more certainty.  That’s a Peter Rollins idea. Or maybe as we and the Divine draw close, certainty transforms into a Tyranny, cutting us off from the fullness of God’s grace and love, because we are certain it just can’t be genuinely that enormous.  

Whatever the “right” phrase is, the truth is that when we and the Divine grow near, the easy illusion of certainty we experience with things like gravity begins to fall apart and it transforms from a help to a hinderance.  It goes from being a liberator to a jailer… from a mercy to mercilessness.  

This is the wall Jonah hit when he brought certainty into his close encounter with the Divine.  Jonah decided that he would rather die holding onto his certainty about God than to let go of all he THOUGHT he knew and embrace, with radical acceptance, that God will do what God will do.    

This is the same wall that the vineyard workers hit when the manager called them in to be paid.  They had been certain about how the vineyard owner would pay them all, and when the owner did not do as they were certain he would do, they grumbled rather than letting go of what they THOUGHT they knew.  They chose not to embrace, with radical acceptance, that the vineyard owner was going to do with the vineyard owner’s money whatever the owner wanted to do.  

The temptation to seek certainty as a way to find comfort is strong.  I find myself drinking from the firehose of the news these days hoping, beyond hope to mine just one little nugget of certainty that might give me just a tiny bit of comfort.  So, I know… trying to hold onto certainty is completely understandable… after all, certainty very often gives a very convincing illusion that it is working… like it does with gravity!  

But when it comes to our encounters with the Divine in particular, certainty fails us, and the more we insist upon it, the more certainty grows into an addiction, an idol, a prison, or a tyranny that leads us into angry grumbling at best or wanting to die at the worst.  

These two parables do many, many things and teach many, many lessons, but today I want us to hear just one of them. As you and the Divine draw close to one another… hold your dogmas as loosely as ever you can… use the lightest of touches as you steer your doctrines, and let the certainty you hold in your clenched fist, slip through your fingers and allow God to do what God chooses, remembering always that God chooses BOTH… the first… as well as the last and both arrive back in the love from where they began.  Amen.  

Bible Math Class

Matthew 18:21-35

Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents

was brought to him; and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Welcome to Bible Math Class.  I am your professor, the Rev. NOT-Doctor Erik Karas.  This class of Bible Math begins with Jesus telling Peter he needs to forgive “77 times” which sounds like a lot, but in Bible Math, “7” is not a literal number.  It’s a symbolic number which means… “the perfect amount” and “77” is symbolic for… and this is technical language… the “super-perfect” amount.  Jesus was telling Peter that he needed to forgive others the “super-perfect” amount of times… in other words he needed to forgive others the way God forgives him… no matter how many times it might take.  

Our Bible math class moves next to the accompanying parable.  We start with the second slave first.  He owed the first slave 100 denarii, but what’s a denarii?  A denarius (singular) was a day’s wages for a field worker, so in Massachusetts the minimum wage is $15 an hour, so working for 8 hours…  that’s 120 bucks… times 100 and the second slave owes the first one 12 grand.  In Connecticut he’d owe close to 14 grand, where the minimum wage is linked to inflation automatically.  Either way… that’s an Ouch!  

THAT, however, is peanuts when we turn our mathematical eye to the first slave who owed his King 10,000 Talents… but… what’s a Talent?  Well, it takes 6000 Denarii to make just ONE Talent… so 6000 times $12,000 equals $720,000.  That’s just for ONE Talent.  But this guy owed 10,000 Talents!!  This guy owed the king 7.2… BBBBBB Billion dollars!  That’s more than the GDP of around 40 COUNTRIES in today’s money!  If that slave tried to pay back that debt to his king (without interest mind you) at even a million dollars a year, it would take him 7200 years to pay what he owed.  

Jesus is using Bible Math in this parable to do what Bible Math in parables always does… it shocks us into learning something about the way God works.  Jesus uses this “can’t wrap your mind around it” amount of money… more than the GDP of entire countries… to show us the mind blowing extent of God’s forgiveness.  When we pray the Lord’s prayer and it says, in one version, “Forgive us our debts” THIS is the level of debt it talks about God forgiving!  This lesson in Bible Math is teaching us that there is absolutely, positively, no possible way for any of us to do anything, anything, ANYTHING that God would not or could not forgive.

But now we need to go back to the second slave and his encounter with the first slave over his debt of a measly 12 grand.  Even though the first guy had just been forgiven his 7.2 BILLION dollar debt, he refused to pass on the same compassion, grace, and forgiveness with the same generosity that he had first received.  Jesus added this part to the parable because he knew very well that we’d all very much like RECEIVING God’s unlimited, unconditional forgiveness, love and compassion BUT we’d also have TERRIBLE TROUBLE passing it on to others, even at a minuscule fraction of what we first received.  

Jesus knew that even though the King in the parable was into radical forgiveness, the rest of us humans tend all too often to want to sprinkle in some retribution with any forgiveness we might give.  But this part of the parable is here to remind us that passing on less than the unconditional love, grace, and generosity of forgiveness that we’ve first received is not the Way, the Truth or the Life. 

It’s not the Way because IF we only pass on only a portion of what we’ve received, then we will inevitably find that it is US who are not free.  It will be US who remain tortured.  Not tortured by God in some cosmic hot place, but by the simple truth that when we don’t let all the debt, all the hurt, all the pain, and all the resentment go, the part we hold onto just grinds away inside of us.  We churn it over and over in our minds.  We work ourselves up into a lather.  We torture ourselves and it feels… well… like hell.  

Jesus gets his point across here very clearly… the more we forgive… the more we let go of the wrongs that have been done to us… the more we strive to be generous, even when others have not been generous with us… the more we will experience the freedom, fullness, and abundance of life God created us to live.  The tighter we hold those resentments, the longer we grind those grudges, the more we look to get even, the more hold back the compassion, generosity and love we have first been given by God, the more our lives will feel like hell.  

But how do you genuinely let it all go?   How do you let all that hurt go?  It’s really, REALLY hard!  This parable tells us the answer is found in community.  We can’t do it alone.  We ALL need help living toward that Divine level of forgiveness.  We ALL need help dying to our brokenness, our woundedness, our past hurts and rising toward being ever more generous, compassionate and forgiving.  

And that is exactly the homework this Bible Math class gives us.  To sit together and acknowledge with one another our shared old hurts, pains, and wounds.  To listen to one another as we get those hurts up and out and discover we are not alone.  To encourage one another as we practice generosity, gratitude, forgiveness and compassion for the people around us.  Because living out of an equation of forgiveness, gratitude, and generosity rather than the equation of resentment, condemnation, and retribution will lead us each day toward a much less tortured, and infinitely more abundant, life.  Amen.