Humility and Community: October 1, 2023

 Philippians 2:1-13                                    Year A, Pentecost 18                                     

My last church was situated in a lovely and relatively small city called Hampton. We didn’t have a minor league baseball team, much less a major league team.  We had a team that was made up of college baseball players who were looking for places to play in the summer.  The games were a lot of fun because you were able to get close to the action.  The people in my church were big supporters of the team.  There was one night where the baseball organization made a specific invitation to churches.  We decided to attend and someone finagled me an invitation to throw the first pitch along with another pastor from a different church. 

This was horrifying prospect for me.  I played soccer. The only time I had thrown a baseball was at a dunking booth and that was embarrassing enough.  I practiced a little, but when the time came, I was overcome with anxiety and the ball didn’t make it over the plate.  It was humiliating. So of course I posted the picture on facebook--- of me on the pitcher’s mound with my head in my hands and wrote, “Another opportunity for humility.”  At the time, I perceived any failure as an opportunity to gain more humility…which isn’t entirely wrong…but I will explain later why this experience wasn’t a great example of humility. 

          One of the themes you will find throughout Paul’s writings is the importance of community, unity, and humility.  Our reading from Philippians starts with the very beginning of chapter 2, but it’s very much connected to what he said in the first chapter.  There he said, “I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the Gospel.”  He returns to this idea of being in the same mind or of one mind several times in our reading for today. 

It’s natural to assume that Paul is telling everyone that they need to agree with one another and even think the same way.  But the Greek that is translated to “be of the same mind” is tricky to translate.  A more accurate interpretation might be “having a depth of understanding and practical wisdom, to know how to act correctly, even in complicated situations.”  That kind of makes just agreeing with one another sound a bit easier. Wouldn’t it be easier just to agree with someone rather than try to understand them? I have had a lot of practice in trying to understand people who I disagree with and it can be a brutal experience.  Rewarding—but brutal.

What does it mean to be of the same mind if you don’t have the same exact beliefs of others in your Christian community? Paul answers that in the direct yet indirect way he excels at.  “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.”  Regard others as better than yourselves.  Now that sounds a bit much.  It’s one thing to respect others and serve others, but why do we assume everyone has to be better than us?  It sounds more like self-degradation and self-deprecation, which can often lead to insecurity and even self-hatred.  Jesus loves his children.   He doesn’t want any of them hating themselves.  So what does Paul mean? I don’t think he intended to focus on how we feel about ourselves, as much as how we feel about others.  Paul wants us to see ourselves and others as beloved children of God.  Sometimes we are good at that, sometimes not so much. 

I saw a bumper sticker that said, “God loves everyone, but God loves me the best.”  And you know, I think we sometimes think that.  We think there is a tier system and surely we are on the top.  When I am really upset with someone, I try to remember, “God loves them too.”  I say it to myself, but I am not sure I am convincing myself. Because if we truly believe that God loves all  God’s children equally, we wouldn’t be able to look down on people.  That’s humility---it’s not about lowering yourself, but raising up others.

When we are able to truly humble ourselves, then we can live in an authentic community.  We can be of the same mind without agreeing about everything.  Because we can acknowledge, “Ok, we might not agree and I am may be absolutely right…but they are still loved by God and they deserve my respect.”  That is what a true Christian community looks like---always remembering that God loves us all equally.

So what does this have to do with my first pitch?  It was humbling and I remember adoring the people of my church as they cheered while the ball rolled across the plate.   They didn’t care that I threw a horrible pitch. They just appreciated that I tried.  But here is where I failed at humility.  You see…the other pastor, he had clearly played baseball. He had the right clothes and he threw a perfect pitch and I was not happy about that.  Because he was from the huge Baptist Church that didn’t allow women to be ordained.  Now I could have been a good Christian and gone up to him and introduced myself.  I could have invited him to lunch so as to get to know him and find some common ground.  But I didn’t do any of that.  I just muttered under my breath about his fancy pitch and found the people I knew loved me.  Because of my inability to see him as a beloved child of God, I missed a chance at being in a community with a different kind of Christians 

Now in my defense…since you don’t know me and might be thinking I am incredibly petty, I did get to know a lot of pastors and Christians from other denominations in my time in Hampton.  I became friends with pastors who I disagreed with on all kinds of levels, but we all cared about serving  people and bringing God’s love to those people.  We raised one another up and we formed a genuine community.  We formed that community when George Floyd was killed three years ago.  We knew that we could not help a diverse community heal without a diverse group of pastors coming together.  That was one of the times when I really learned how important humility is when forming a community of people with wildly different opinions.  It’s not about thinking less about yourself.  It’s about thinking more of others.

I have been here for less than a week, but I have been blown away by your kindness and hospitality.  You have brought my family food and offered to help unpack boxes. I have also seen how you care for one another through Good Shepherds, Parish Life, and small groups bringing communion to those who are homebound.  While I don’t know you, I am going to take a wild guess and assume you all don’t agree about everything all the time.  That’s ok. That’s actually good.  The church is the one place, the one community where you don’t have to have anything in common except faith or a desire to have faith.  You don’t need to vote for the same people, you don’t need to have the same level of education or the same amount of money.  You might not have anything in common with the person behind you.  You don’t even have to all like the Eagles!

That makes us unique and exquisite.  It also makes it hard to stay in community and you can tell from Paul’s letters, it was hard for the early Christian community as well.  But it’s worth it.  If we can just try to see others as God’s see them, then we will discover what humility really means.  It’s putting the needs of others above our needs.  I know you already have a good community, but my hope for my time with you, is that we will build an even more diverse community that is imbued with the Holy Spirit….a place where we can really know one another.  That is what we all crave, being known and loved for who we are. We can do that together, with humility and love.

 

 

Violence ≠ Norm : October 8, 2017

Year A, Pentecost 18                                              
Matthew 21:33-46                                                                             

            This has never been one of my favorite Gospel readings.  I am not sure I know anyone who likes this reading.  For me, it’s the violence.  We all know that there is violence in the Bible, but most of us assume that the violence is limited to the Old Testament.  But as we know far too well, violence is part of our world. That does not mean it is a good part of our world, but it is there—now-- just as it was 2000 years ago.  Jesus was never one to shy away from uncomfortable topics. 

            In preaching we are told never to allegorize the parables.  In other words, we should not simplify them by turning them into morality stories where everything symbolizes somethings else.  Usually it is not that cut and dry.  However for this parable, it is a little more cut and dry because the story is a reference to the words of Isaiah where he talked about a vineyard and said: “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel…”  The land owner in the story is God and the land that others are caring for is not just the land of Israel, but the people of Israel, the people of God.  That is the only part of the parable that is defined in Isaiah, but that is a pretty big part.  Most people have inferred that the tenants who treated the owner’s servants poorly represented the religious leaders of the time.  People have assumed this because of the way that the Pharisees and the Chief Priests reacted.  The text says that they realized it was about them and wanted to arrest Jesus because of that.  But Jesus never says that directly.[1] 

            One of confusing things about this parable is the actions of the owner.  The beginning of the story makes sense.  He prepares the land and equips it with everything that is needed for a good harvest.  It was not uncommon for a business man to own land and lease it to someone else. The expectation was that in exchange for allowing the people to harvest his land, they would give him a percentage of either the profit or the harvest itself.  In this case, the owner was collecting a portion of the produce.   To do so, he sent servants out to collect the produce.  So far, everything is making sense.  Then the tenants kill one servant and injure the two others.  This is a violent reaction, but not unprecedented.  These tenants were clearly abusing the owner and his servants by doing this. 

One would expect the owner to react just as severely.  He could take a chance and send more servants, but this time send them heavily armed.  More likely it would have been wise to send members of the army to arrest those corrupt tenants.  He did neither of those things.  He sent more people assuming that the tenants would have gotten over their violent tendencies.  However, this new group of servants were treated the same way as the first group. By now, several of his servants were dead and the rest were injured. It seems like this would be the time to send in the big guns…the cavalry.  These tenants were clearly not going to have a change of heart.  Yet this is where things get a little crazy.  The owner sends his son.  His son. One person. He assumes that by putting trust in these tenants, they would see what a caring owner he is. They would repent and treat the son better than the others he sent.   But they don’t. They kill the son. 

            At this point in the story, Jesus turns to the crowd and he asks them what they think the owner will do next.  They respond in the most practical and reasonable way.  The owner will kill those horrible wretches and give someone else the land.  In responding this way, the people in the crowd showed their limitations.  Their response was violence because that was all they knew.  If someone kills someone, they get killed.  That is fair and just. But that is not how the owner operates.  That is not how God operates.  God gave humans everything we could possibly need. When God asked something in return (obedience, love and loyalty) humans refused.  So God sent the prophets, people of wisdom, strength and faith. Most were killed and all were treated with cruelty.  Then God sent his son hoping that people would learn from his son, come to understand God in a new way.  Some did, but the vast majority did not.  God’s son was beaten and killed. 

How did God respond to this ultimate betrayal?  Did he avenge the death of his son? Did he strike down all the people who had rejected him, accused him, ignored him, beaten him and ultimately killed him? That would have been the fair thing to do. That would have been the just thing to do.  He didn’t.  He raised Jesus from the dead and he sent him back to the same people who rejected him. 

While we know the end of this story, let’s assume for a minute that we do not know the end.  Sending Jesus back again seems like a really bad idea to me.  God had already given the people many chances.  He had been more than fair.  Why send his son back?  Because it was about more than being fair. It’s about how God loves God’s people—how God loves us.  God does not love us in the ways that make any sense. He gives us countless chances to reform, countless chances to respond to cruelty and hate not with violence, but with forgiveness and love. 

            It’s true that it made a huge difference when God sent Jesus back from the dead.  For those who had believed, their faith was renewed.  For those who doubted, they came to believe.   No one tried to kill Jesus again, at least not that we know of.  Thus, it would seem that this final desperate attempt was successful.  Or was it?  Yes, a church was created.  Christianity was spread across the world and continues to thrive in many places. Yet, Christians continue to be persecuted in some places. People doing the work of God are still killed.  The problem is even more complex and pervasive than that.  Even as Christians, as followers of Christ, we continue to turn from him again and again.  We don’t kill the son, but it seems at times like we try. 

            God gave his son.  While Jesus ascended, we still have him. We have that gift that God foolishly bestowed on us so many years ago.  We have the gift of a love that has no limit.  With that gift comes a responsibility, like discovering ways to respond to injustice without resorting to violence.  I cannot tell you exactly how to do it. I have some ideas, but I am not sure of anything.  What I know is that what we are doing is not working. The crowd responded to Jesus in the only way they knew-- violence.[2]  That was not Jesus’ response.  As Christians, we have been taught something different. The norm can no longer be death and destruction.

 By the time a child turns 18, they will have seen an average of 16,000 murders on television and over 200,000 acts of violence. It’s the default. It’s the norm. Many people have said that when they heard about the shooting in Las Vegas, they felt numb.  Oh, another shooting.  We have gone numb.  That is not what Jesus wanted.  That I know for sure.

            Perhaps what we can do, what we can start to do, is shift our thinking so that violence does not have to be the default.  We can look at creative options.  I know that sometimes violence has to happen.  I am not a pacifist.  I know that I live in a country that is safer than most partly because we have the strength to respond to violence.   But that does not have to be the only way.  As I considered how we could shift our thinking, our baseline, I looked at the first reading.  It’s the 10 commandments.  If we followed those 10 commandments, there would be peace in this world.  Take your bulletin home.  Read those commandments every day this week, even before you look at the news.  Start imagining what the world would look like if we actually followed God’s guidance.  If we can spend more time thinking and praying on those things, then that will be our default.  Let God’s love and grace be the way we start our day. We can change the norm.

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[1] This is mostly likely what Matthew was saying, but this was partially due to the fact that the church was facing persecution from the Jews at the time.  Unfortunately texts like this have fueled anti-Semitism over the last 2000 years.

[2] I am not saying Jews only knew violence.  With the Roman occupation, and some of the laws of the Torah, violence was often uses as a form of punishment.  Jesus taught something different.