Enough

Preached at Ellicott and Simla UMCs

Why would he do that? I have many questions for the landowner in the reading from Matthew. First of all: why didn't he just hire all the workers he needed when he went out the first time? Why would he hire workers so late in the day? Why would he pay the workers who were only there for a short period of time a full day's wages? Why would he have the manager pay the workers he hired at the end of the day first? He knew all the other workers would be standing there waiting and so they would see that they got paid the same? And why not save some money and pay those who worked a partial day a partial wage? There does not seem to be much logic to this scenario.

The sensible version of this story might go something like: the landowner went out in the morning, hired his workers for the agreed upon wage of a denarius which is enough to provide a family with food for one day. Later the landowner realized he needed more workers and since these workers had not been out in the hot sun all day he agreed to pay them for the number of hours they did work. No one felt wronged. That seems fair.

But of course as we all know … life is not always fair. As a mother of a three and six year old I often hear the words “that's not fair!” Sometimes it's true. Sometimes things are not fair. At snack time some kids get brownies and candy and others get carrot sticks and grapes. As we grow older we realize that some people get ahead not because of how hard they work or how long they practice but just because of who they are, their name, their status or a lucky break. Some people work grueling, back breaking jobs and make less than others who sit in air-conditioned offices and do little. Good guys don't always finish first. Life is not always fair.

But that isn't exactly what is happening in the story we read today. While you may argue that the actions of the landowner are not even or logical, they are just. The workers who were hired earliest in the day agreed to their wages and they were paid what they agreed to. He paid them a good day's wage and he paid them when the work was complete. All of the workers were paid enough and on time. Maybe they didn't think it was fair, but it was just.

What made the actions of the landowner baffling or illogical was mercy. This parable begins by saying “the kingdom of heaven is like …” and two things we can learn from it are justice and mercy. Even those who came late in the day were given a wage to live on. Those who were not called first, the ones that get there late in the game, the ones who think they will get nothing, are given the same reward. It may not follow logic but it is merciful.

The kingdom of heaven is guided by justice and mercy. This is good news. No one is above anyone else simply because of who they are or where they come from. No one is pushed out for failings, shortcomings and sins. This is hope for all of us who have shortcomings, failings and sins. This is good news for all of us who have been angered by injustice, who have suffered or watched others suffer at the hands of evil and injustice. This is a big sigh of relief for those of us who do not always get it right the first time and need forgiveness and mercy. So why then does it not always feel like good news?

In the story the workers found an employer who will pay them fairly, stick to what they agree to and provide a living for many people and yet they are upset. I think that perhaps the problem is not with the landowner or the manager, but with themselves. It's their own issue. Just like when God chooses to show mercy to others and it defies our sense of logic or what is fair it is not a problem with God's action but rather something within us. Our own inability to accept the abundance of God's grace and the worth of all children of God.

The other day I took my sons to play mini-golf and there was a school bus there. We were behind another family and all around us were groups of very young children from a daycare with caregivers spread out monitoring them. Some of the kids went back and redid holes, some lingered and played with the statues of animals for a while. All the kids got water bottles and snacks and happily played. As they were leaving I heard the family in front of us complaining to the front desk about the kids from the daycare. She didn't understand why they needed water bottles and snacks just to play golf or why they got to redo holes. She was mad that some of the children were running around. As far as I saw the children from the daycare did not disrupt her playing in any way but she was mad at what she felt was unfair.

Sometimes it's mini-golf, sometimes it's a new register opening up when we are paying after we stood in a long line, a bigger scoop of ice cream for another at the same price we paid, sometimes it's seeing another person get a discounted education that we paid full price for or love and forgiveness given to someone who wasn't around for the hard stuff. Sometimes mercy feels unfair.

Right now my three year old is trying to figure this out in his own way. He is struggling with the fact that I also love his brother as much as I love him. Whenever my oldest gets hurt my youngest immediately starts crying and runs to me because he knows I am about to give attention to his brother. The other day I told my oldest that he was “just the sweetest” and then I heard a sad small voice down the hallway say “mommy, why didn't you say I am the sweetest?” And when my oldest was at school my three year old said “Mommy, you love me more than Oscar … right?” I try to explain to him that when I give attention and care to Oscar it does not take away from my love for him. I try to explain that my heart is equally full for both of them. I try to explain that I am a mommy to both of them and will always be. But right now he loves me with his whole heart and the fact that I love someone else as much can make it feel like it isn't reciprocated.

For the earliest audiences of this parable in Matthew, there was a different kind of issue of unfairness happening. There were Jewish Christians, those who were the first to hear the Good News of Christ and then there were Gentile Christians, those who came later to the faith through missionaries and preaching. There were those who had been studying the law and the faith for their entire lives and then there were these new people who did not understand the history and the intricacies. They show up with their strange ways claiming the message of Christ for themselves and believing to have an equal share in God's love and in the kingdom of heaven. It was a problem … not for God … not for the kingdom of heaven, but for those who felt it was not fair.

It touches on so many of our worst parts: jealousy, envy, greed, feeling sorry for ourselves... I for one am guilty of all of these things at one time or another. Who among us has not at some point in our lives begrudged another's good fortune because of our jealousy? There's nothing like forcing a smile as you look through someone's amazing Caribbean all-inclusive vacation photos after you have spent the last three nights cleaning up vomit and doing laundry.

But maybe there is something even deeper happening when we cringe at the happiness of another. Maybe when we see someone who has done really vile things forgiven or a lazy person win there is another reason we don't feel like forcing a smile. It isn't because of what God has done. It is not that we are mad at some outside force like fate or good luck, but maybe it's our own thing. It's within us.

Perhaps those workers who were hired first thing and toiled in the sun all day, perhaps they were upset because they felt that the landowner's action meant they had not done a good enough job or they weren't as valued. Maybe we have such a hard time accepting the wideness and richness of God's mercy and love for others because we are having a hard time accepting it for ourselves.

We are used to assessing our value in life by comparing ourselves to others. If we do better than someone else we feel good. If we feel badly about ourselves we just look to someone doing worse and feel better. In school an A only has value because other people got Bs, Cs, Ds and Fs. A promotion only means something if it raises you above someone else. A win is only a win if it is a loss for another.

But maybe … in the kingdom of heaven we don't have to do that. We can just know that we are loved and valued and forgiven and cherished just as we are. There is enough grace for everyone. We do not have to stand on top of someone else for recognition. The joy and happiness of someone else can only add to our own rather than take away from it. Justice and mercy are poured out even on those of us who get jealous or greedy.

Some day my three year old will come to understand the depth of my love. He will love others and experience the joy that comes from an expanded heart with room for many. Some day he will know that when I hug his brother it is a way of reassuring him too that I am a loving and kind mother and that my love for him and his brother does not run out. But in the meantime as I try to teach this to him I am going to watch my words and actions to make sure I model this truth. That I don't bash others when I feel insecure, or get angry at the success of those seemingly “undeserving,” that I do not teach him by my words and actions that we are more worthy than others just because of who we are, that I force that smile and keep working on it even when I feel like pouting in envy. It's something we are all trying to learn and work on because unconditional love, unending grace and mercy poured out for all is not something we see often. It is not our experience of the ways of the world and our hearts have been hardened, our skin thickened and our expectations lowered. But God tells us that this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. This is our God- just, merciful, loving and full of grace. This is good news. There is enough to go around even to those showing up late, even to those who don't get it right, even to you, even to me. Amen.

Clarity

Tuesday I sent my older son to Kindergarten and then took my youngest son to his first day of Preschool.  He was so excited and barely said good bye as he happily ran into his classroom.  I went to the morning prayer service at the church I attend.  First I stopped in the bathroom to shed some tears.  It felt fair, I cried on my older son's first days of school.  Then I went in the giant sanctuary and realized I was quite early.  I walked through the dark echoing space with glimmers of light coming through the tall stained-glass windows as my only guide.  I made my way to the side chapel and flicked some light switches not knowing what they would do.  A light came on and I sat down in a pew.  The light was illuminating a beautiful image of Mary holding baby Jesus.  Mary looking large and beautiful, clearly the star.  In the image she is revered and in the chapel she is the main focus, prominent and honored as she holds her baby.

Having always been Protestant, this image of Mary was not one that was nearly as prominent or revered as others.  So I enjoyed the time of silence I had there to reflect on it.  I very much believe in the power of silent prayer.  The kind of prayer where you don't really know what you are praying for and the main objective is to continually keep your mind from wandering onto thoughts of the day.  I stared at Mary and worked to keep focus.

One year as my Lenten discipline I decided to dedicate myself to thirty minutes of silent prayer per day.  It was a challenge, but one that was well worth it.  At the time I was the pastor of a church and sometimes I would sit down for my thirty minutes with some seemingly impossible situation on my mind.  Something I just could not see the way forward through and lo and behold by the end of thirty minutes I would have clarity.  EVERY TIME.  Probably in the secular world this would be attributed to clearing the mind, deep breathing, etc.  All of those are probably part of it, but I also attribute it to taking the time to hear the Holy Spirit speak.  It was great and so when Lent was over I did it every day for years and years.  Just kidding.  I did what we all do with disciplines that are life-giving and eye-opening ... I promptly dropped it when my commitment was through.  I still pray but it's usually filled with petitions and usually not a full thirty minutes at once.

So I was sitting there in the chapel, staring at Mary, clearing my mind and I had a moment of clarity.  Her willingness to love even when she knew the suffering and loss that was to come is what makes her so honored and admired.  I thought about this in my own life.  I thought about how dropping your kids off at school, letting them gain independence, releasing them from the hug good-bye is a process of letting go.  It is a process of realizing that these people you love so much and hold so dearly will go out into the big scary world and somehow find their way.  We do it knowing that we can't control everything that will come their way.  There will be pain that can't be wiped away with a kiss.  There will be heartbreak that is not undone with a big hug and there will be suffering on both ends because that's what life brings.

If you are like me then you often have found yourself feeling as if you are not enough - not doing enough, not being enough.  As a stay at home mom I often struggle with this feeling as if all of my education and career preparation and potential was just for picking up toys and feeling guilty when my children eat too many sweets.  As a pastor I struggled with the pressures of growing a church, casting a vision, providing pastoral care to everyone, staying well-read, working for justice and all the other expectations of the job.  In hindsight I often forget that and see only the moments of success and joy.  Those amazing moments when lives are changed, the Holy Spirit is witnessed and the work feels meaningful.

After morning prayer I went to a women's book group and shared and listened to stories of beauty and struggle.  One person shared a story of how she came to the realization that her greatest sin had been not accepting that God loves her.  It was powerful.  We talked about people in our lives with "rough edges" who became saints in our journey.  We talked about our own inadequacies and struggles.  It got me thinking back to that image of Mary I spent the morning with.  We were all opening our hearts in a world of struggle and suffering.  We were all choosing to offer love even though it leads to hurt.  We were all Marys in our own way, cradling our cherished memories, our loves, our hopes while the cross stands in view.  Perhaps that is our potential ... our best selves.

Sermon from Grace and St. Stephen's Episcopal Church 9/3/17

Sermon for Grace and St Stephen's 9/4/17

Confession: I never tell people how long it has been since I pastored a church. I actually won't even calculate it in my mind. It's easy enough, my oldest was nearly 2 and now he is nearly 6, but before I do that simple math I change the subject. You see I don't care to admit how long I have been “out of it” because I feel like every passing year outside the weekly pulpit, every new layer of dust collected on my alb and the boxes in our basement labeled “Jen's office stuff” makes me feel one year less important. I'm not saying that's right or the way it should be but it's the way it is. I'm one year further from using my official title and it feels like I have less standing among clergy (although they do not act that way) like I'm less up on what's happening in the world of ecclesial and theological happenings. When clergy friends are relating stories of struggle and triumph my relatable stories are further and further away and I feel less and less “in the trenches.”

It's an ego thing. I remember (some years ago) when I was making the decision about leaving my job and I made this very vulnerable and raw confession to my husband … the kind of confession you only make to a very close friend or spouse … and now hundreds of you. I said “what if my ego can't take it?” I never thought of myself as particularly ego driven but what if not seeing my name on a pay check or church sign or my ideas written into monthly newsletter articles or having a list of people wanting appointments with me … what if it's an absence … an abyss too strongly felt and my ego crumbles?

In spite of my concerns and hesitations, the call I was feeling at that time for a change gave me the courage to jump into that abyss … that unknown world. And here I am (some years later). Now when the opening hymn begins you will not find me at the end of the procession wearing sacredly sewn vestments with a divinely inspired sermon in my hand but rather picking up crushed gold fish crackers, whispering warnings to my 3 and 5 year old, wiping remnants of their blueberry oatmeal off my clothes I did not have time to iron . . . and as the processional cross approaches tapping them to get their attention and remind them to bow for the cross. It is certainly a different view of things and a different type of trenches I find myself in.

The Gospel reading today got me thinking about this … this jump into the abyss. The giving up of my dream job, my title, my long held identity, my status, my role, my sense of self. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

I remember studying this passage in depth when I was in seminary. These words are found not just in Matthew but in Mark and Luke as well. We studied it in the context of what the original audience was experiencing which was severe persecution. This added weight to the words. Particularly in Mark's Gospel it is understood with urgency and quite literally rather than metaphorically. If you want to follow me you will actually have to pick up your cross and lose your life. At the time I remember thinking that other interpretations seemed weak in comparison. As if over time this passage had become lightened, watered down, particularly the phrase “my cross to bear.” Like the person who always gets left to fold the folding chairs after the meeting describing it as “their cross to bear” or if you are the only one in the family with ugly toenails and you decide it is your “cross to bear.” It's become a saying that people use and I remember feeling at the time I studied this that all of that internalizing and attributing to metaphor and explaining away took away from the tremendous weight of this charge. People were actually risking their lives to follow Christ, actually bearing crosses. Any other way of looking at it seemed like a cop out.

But now as I look at this (some years later) and I read that line “let them deny themselves” and understand it in terms of this context, it does not feel light, it does not feel like a cop out, it does not feel weak. It feels like a challenge, a serious charge, a legitimate way of understanding the road to discipleship, what it means to follow Christ, what it means to experience the power of the risen Lord. Denying self for the sake of following a suffering servant. Setting aside the things we hold onto to make us feel important and instead serving Christ. This ego stuff is hard.

In so many ways and times and places life challenges our egos, our sense of importance, our way of attaching meaning to our lives. Years ago I was contemplating how I would feel important without a job and today I'm contemplating how I will feel important as my youngest starts preschool and my other son kindergarten. Saying goodbye to the baby days, the days when a being is completely 100 percent dependent on you brings relief but also a shift in role. A change in the way one sees themselves.

And while my opening story made the role of clergy sound very important and noble and rewarding, it hasn't been so long that I forget the other side. I have an actual story of something that happened to me during ministry that I think illustrates what I mean by “the other side.” One day I was sitting in my office doing some work at my desk and in walked a chihuahua. I was surprised to see an unattended dog as my office was not near an outside door and so I did as any polite person might and said “hello.” The dog stood there and barked at me pretty loudly for a while. Then it stopped … pooped on my carpeted office floor and walked out. You may think I was surprised or horrified or startled but instead my first thought was “that's about right.” It seemed on par with what I had been experiencing with office visits at the time.

Whatever our role or occupation or place in life we have all had those moments in life when we feel the weight, fear and insecurity that can come from denying ourselves. Faith …. following … requires some ego work. The ability to let go of self, to shed the walls, the stories we have told ourselves, the protections in place and believe that even without all of that we can be loved, we can be accepted we can have meaning … it's not easy.

This summer I decided to dive into some Paul Tillich and I read “The Courage to Be.” In this book he looks at the paradoxes of existence. He explores what it means to exist and “be” in a world where we are surrounded by what he would call “non-being.” In other words, how do we get through life with joy, hope and courage when we are surrounded by the reality that we are mortal, we are finite, we are temporary. Death, disease, despair is all around us. Meaninglessness, hopelessness can feel so big and so strong that it could swallow us up. How do we keep going, day after day with this weight? With fear? With doubts? With pain? He talks about the ability to accept that we are accepted even when we don't deserve it. He talks about the courage to ask the questions, explore the abyss, express the doubt -and how that can be essential to deepening one's faith. He talks about looking into the face of meaninglessness and finding that there is in fact something greater, something beyond it.

I understood it as a way of letting go of the desire to understand everything, to control everything, and instead embracing all that life has to offer- trusting and knowing that God is there … God is here. That God is greater than us, present with us and when we can move past the fear and embrace the mystery then we can have the courage to move forward, the courage to be, the courage to live with faith. We can accept that there is existence beyond just our self and we are a part of it, part of this greater being, this eternal changelessness.

I see it as an act of self-denial. “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” We have to be willing to lose, to fall into the abyss, to shatter the walls we put up and the self importance we create to find life in Christ. To let go of our fear of meaninglessness in order to find meaning.

And I don't think that I nailed it when I walked away from my career. I think it is something we do again and again and again. And we come every Sunday and confess that we have failed and give our souls sustenance so we can keep at it. The world just keeps challenging our ego. Opposing views, criticisms, hurtful words, despair, suffering, sadness. They come at us and Jesus keeps calling us to deny ourselves and follow him. To humble ourselves and embrace something bigger.

I'm thinking back to something I said at the beginning of this sermon. When I was talking about the opening hymn and my place in (or actually not in) the procession. When I am trying to get myself into an internal place of worship and worried about the kids behaving. When I am trying to find my place in the bulletin and hold the page on the hymnal and remember what verse we are on while one kid is asking for his Pokemon book and the other needs his snack because I told him he had to wait until worship started and the opening procession is as long as he can wait. When I want to take in the beauty of the music and the meaning of the words I am singing and the majesty of this space but I just remembered that the water bottle I brought leaks.

And standing above the pews and the people and the vestments is the cross. And it comes to where we are … calling … beckoning. And I tap my kids on the shoulder and remind them to bow before the cross. Maybe that is the most important and best thing I can do. Recognize my frailty, my dependency and nod a “yes” to Christ's renewed request to follow him … and for these four years I have been in the pews with them and however many more are to come … teaching my children to do the same.