Did Jesus have a platform?: October 22, 2023

 Year A, 20 Pentecost                                               Matthew 22:15-22                                                        

At some point in 9^th or 10^th grade, I became obsessed with politics.  I think it was the presidential election that got me interested and living in Northern Virginia, which was so close to Washington DC. I remained obsessed all the way through high school and majored in political science. My honors thesis senior year was on religion and politics. For a long time I have been fascinated by the intersection of religion and politics. One of the things that drew me to the Episcopal Church is the way that it’s governed.  The structure of the Episcopal Church was created at the same time as the structure of the United States government.  It was even created by the same people in the same city---this city. While they were creating that government, they worshipped at this church.        

Despite all of that, I have always been wary of getting too close to politics in the pulpit.  I try to preach the Bible and how it applies to our lives.  Sometimes there is overlap with politics, but I will never tell you how to vote or what I think of our current tax structure. Jesus was willing to confront the political and religious leadership of the day.  He had the right to do that as he had absolute moral authority.  He deserved that right. Well at least that is what we believe now. At the time, very few people thought he had that right.  And you know what’s kind of interesting…when a lot of people hear Jesus’ words today, they perceive them as political. Funny how that is…

This Gospel reading is a familiar one. People like to depict it as Jesus’ definitive stance on the separation of church and state—as if Jesus had a political platform and this was part of it.  “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  The popular interpretation is that Jesus was telling people that there are two spheres with a clear wall in-between them--religion and the government. 

            There are a few problems with this interpretation.  First of all, we cannot compare the political environment of Jesus’ day to ours today…and thank goodness for that.  We live in a democracy, an imperfect democracy, but a democracy none the less.  Jesus was a Jew living in an occupied territory.  Israel was under the control of the Roman Empire. Because they were a people in an occupied territory, they had no rights.  They didn’t get a vote on who their leader was.  Even the Roman citizens didn’t get to choose their leader. They had an emperor—not an elected official. To complicate matters further, the Roman emperor considered himself a god and demanded the devotion of a god. There was no separation of religion and government.  That is impossible when the leader of the government portrays himself as a god. This put the Jews in a very difficult situation because the first commandment is to worship no other god but the one true God. 

            The Romans, while not known for their overall sensitivity, were fairly tolerant of other religions. They knew that the Jewish people would never worship another god.  The Jews would revolt before they did that.  The Romans were able to keep some modicum of peace by not forcing the Jews to worship the emperor.  But they did make them pay taxes…lots of taxes.  Those taxes were controversial because they actually supported the Roman occupation of Israel. The Jewish people were paying to be subjugated.  

In our story for today, there were two groups who came together to challenge Jesus.  We don’t know much about the Herodians.  There is only one other reference to them in the Bible.  People assume they were supporters of Herod who represented the Roman leadership. If that was the case, it was odd that they were teaming up with the Pharisees in trying to trap Jesus.  The Pharisees didn’t usually associate with Herod’s people. It just goes to show how threatening Jesus was to every power structure that existed at the time. 

            They thought that they had the perfect question to trap Jesus. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?” If Jesus answered the question in a way that indicated that he supported the tax, he would alienate his Jewish followers.  If he said that they shouldn’t pay the tax, he could be accused of rebelling against Rome.  Instead of answering whether it was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, he asked for the coin…the coin that would be used to pay this particular tax.  He did not have the coin.  The people asking the question did.  That is an important detail to note.

            They brought him a denarius.  It had a picture of the emperor with the inscription: “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus Pontifex Maximus.”  Augustus was a smart man and a very effective emperor.  When he took power, he made himself not only political leader, but a religious one as well.  When he died, he was a declared a god, making his son, the son of god.  It was his son’s picture on the coin.  Even possessing this coin was considered idolatry in the Jewish faith.  It broke the first commandment. The Pharisees should not have even had the coin, but they did.  When Jesus asked for the coin, he was proving that he was not the pawn of the Roman government, they were…especially if they were allying themselves with the Herodians.  Even if they were not pawns, they were certainly complicit.  It was a brilliant way to point out their hypocrisy.

            Jesus’ answer to the question wasn’t clear.  I am not sure he meant it to be.  “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God, the things that are God’s.”  Jesus paid his taxes.  We know that from chapter 17 of Matthew.  We also know it because otherwise he would have been arrested a lot earlier.  It would have been impossible to remain in a land occupied by Rome and not pay taxes.  That doesn’t mean Jesus respected the emperor or agreed with the tax. He just knew that was what he had to do.  The more important part of this response from Jesus is the 2^nd half, the half people don’t quote nearly as often.  “Give  to God, the things that are God’s.” We know (in theory) that everything is God’s.  Everything in creation is God’s.  This isn’t Jesus demarcating a separation between God and the government.  Everything is God’s.  Caesar can have his coins, but that’s because God is allowing it.  God doesn’t want part of our love and commitment.  He wants all of it—not just the change in our pockets.

            One commentator summed it up like this, “Live with the emperor but live for God.”[1]  We live with and within the government.  We might ally ourselves with a political party or a certain leader, but that is not our identity---that is not the heart of who we are.  Our heart is with Jesus. We can never stop living for God, because then we lose ourselves. 

When we say that God doesn’t have a place in our government or that our faith and our politics can never touch, then I fear that we are missing the bigger picture.  God has no interest in a portion of our loyalty.  He wants all of it and he wants all of us.  Politics is occupying a large part of our attention these days.  Can you imagine if we spent as much time worshipping and serving God as we do complaining about politics or really anything for that matter? Try it. Just for a day.  Then maybe we will understand what it means to “Live with the emperor but live for God.”

---

[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=5458

What it means to be chosen: Oct. 15, 2023

 Year A, Pentecost 20                                               Matthew 22:1-14                                                          

The news from Israel and Gaza has been devastating and overwhelming.  It has resonated with Americans given our close ties with the region over the years. We also feel a connection as Christians.  When we read the Gospels, we are reading about the same places that we see in the news.  We, along with two other faith traditions, consider this holy land. And while it is heart breaking and overwhelming, it is not new.  I often hear Christians remark that they are not particularly fond of the Old Testament because of the violence.  Yet we see violence in the stories that Jesus tells as well.  We don’t like the violence.  We can even try to ignore it, but it’s there---just like it’s in our world.

Last week we had violence in our parable, but it seemed a bit more one sided. If you recall, the violence came from the tenants of the land and the other side (the landowner) didn’t respond with violence.  In fact, the landowner responded in what seemed like a foolish way, he sent his son.  Today’s reading is different.  The king is throwing a wedding banquet for his son.  And he is not pleased with the negative responses to his summons.

In Jesus’s day, wedding invitations were a little different than they are today, especially royal wedding invitations. They would send the invitations out ahead of time without a specific time mentioned. Then when the day came, the servants of the king would go out to the invited guests and summon them when the feast was ready.  Yet in this instance, when the servants of the king went to the guests, they refused to come.   Not only did they refuse the invitation, some beat and killed some of the servants.  As you can imagine the king was upset. He was insulted as a person, but especially as a king. 

But unlike the owner of the vineyard last week who merely sent out more servants to be beaten and killed, the king in this story sent out troops to kill the murderers and burn the city.  This seems a little harsh, on both the part of the guests who beat the servants and the king who burned the city.  On the one hand, it’s understandable that the king would be upset.  But why burn the whole city? 

You know what scary part is, those kinds of reactions happen all the time.  Someone gets offended and they respond in a totally disproportionate manner.  Jesus liked to tell stories that people would identify with, and sadly, the audience would have identified with this volatile reaction.  Even today, while it seems harsh, it feels familiar.

But here is where Jesus throws in the surprise twist…the part that would seem completely strange to the people listening at that time.  After the intended guests turned him down, the king decided to invite everyone and anyone.  This is held up as an example of God’s hospitality and even a model of how we can welcome people today.  For those of us hearing this story now, those of us who have heard of the abundant love of God, the story starts to make sense.  Maybe, just maybe, this parable can be redeemed.

Alas no. Jesus throws in another twist.  Someone had the audacity to join the feast without the fancy wedding robe. The king questioned him and the when the guest remained speechless, the king threw him into the outer darkness where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  That sounds like an overreaction. 

Didn’t this king just bring people in from off the street? How could he expect them to have a wedding garment at such short notice, especially if they didn’t have the means? This is when we have to remember, that parables were not events that actually happened.  They were stories Jesus used to explain a deeper truth and challenge the status quo.

This story isn’t about wedding attire.  If it was, then no one would have had the proper attire.  All were summoned at the last minute from off the street.  This man could not have been the only one who had not come prepared.  Some commentators point out that in a circumstance like this, the host would provide the wedding garment for all guests.  This would mean that this person who was not wearing one had chosen not to put on what the host provided.  This would explain why he was singled out.  He had accepted the invitation, but then refused the gift of a new garment. 

The last line of this parable is one that makes us cringe, because it doesn’t sound like the Jesus we know and love.  He said, “For many are called, but few are chosen.”  If you think this sounds wrong, I would agree.  Perhaps a better interpretation would be, “Many are invited, but few choose to stay.”  Being called is the invitation that God provides to all of us.  We are all invited to the banquet.  We are all invited to be children of God.  Yet it is our choice whether we accept that invitation.  The man in this story was willing to come to the table, but he wasn’t willing to change.  In Galatians, Paul says that we are clothed in Christ.  That sounds lovely.  Unfortunately, it’s much harder than simply changing our clothes. God wants us to change our heart and our actions.  God is looking for a transformation.

One of my favorite quotes (and no one knows who first said it) is, “God loves us just the way we are, but God loves us too much to let us stay that way.” It’s true that God’s love for us is abundant and all encompassing.  But God also has expectations for what we do with that love.  If we accept God’s love, we must then love others…not just in word, but in action.  If we accept God’s love, we cannot simply witness violence and say, “Well that’s just the way it is.” And we can’t accept our own faults and refuse to change, because then we just end up wearing our guilt and shame like chains. 

While we are wrapped in the chains that we have refused to loose, God holds the lightest most beautiful garment we could possibly imagine. My theory is that this wedding guest wasn’t ready to let go of his own guilt and shame.  Maybe he didn’t feel like he was good enough to wear this beautiful wedding robe.  Maybe he felt like he couldn’t possibly deserve what he had been given.  So he refused to even try it on. 

We are all worthy to embody the love of God.  We are all worthy, no matter what has happened in the past, even if the past is this morning.  We are all worthy. The question is, can we believe that? Can we act in a way that shows we have accepted God’s love? 

We can. I know we can.  Yet it’s not as easy as simply changing our clothes. It’s slow process…more like releasing chains than changing clothes.  Sometimes we even put the chains back on because their heaviness protects us in some way, protects us from the freedom and love that both draws us in and terrifies us. That’s one of the reasons we have the confession every Sunday. Because we need weekly (maybe hourly) reminders that God’s forgiveness is ours if only we ask.  Redemption is ours if only we seek. It’s a journey.  It’s an arduous journey.  But it’s not one we take alone.  We make that journey with one another and with God. 

What we cannot do is give up.  We remove one chain at a time, and when they pile up again, we ask someone else for help.  You are worthy of God’s love. Israel and Palestine are worthy of God’s love.  All are worthy of God’s love.  Can we act in a way that shows we believe that?  Can we? We can— with God’s help, we can.

Religion and Politics: October 18, 2020

 Matthew 22: 15-22                                                              October 18, 2020

        At some point in 9^th or 10^th grade, I became obsessed with politics.  I think it was the presidential election that got me interested and maybe living in Northern Virginia, which was so close to Washington DC. I remained obsessed all the way through high school and majored in political science. My honors thesis senior year was on religion and politics. For a long time I have been fascinated by the intersection of religion and politics. One of the things that drew me to the Episcopal Church is the way that it’s governed.  The structure of the Episcopal Church was created at the same time as the structure of the United States government.  It was even created by the same people in the same city.  You will have to take the Episcopal 101 class to learn more, but there are some considerable parallels.          

Despite all of that, I have always been wary of getting too close to politics especially in the pulpit.  I preach the Bible and how it applies to our lives.  Sometimes there is some overlap, but I will never tell you how to vote or what I think of our current tax structure. Yet, I believe that Jesus was willing to confront the political and religious leadership of the day.  Since he was God, he had the right to do that as he had the absolute moral authority.  He deserved that right.

This Gospel reading is a familiar one. People like to depict it as Jesus’ definitive stance on the separation of church and state—as if Jesus had a political platform and this was part of it.  “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  The popular interpretation is that Jesus was telling people that there are two spheres with a clear wall in-between them--religion and the government. 

            There are a few problems with this interpretation.  First of all, we cannot compare the political environment of Jesus’ day to ours today…and thank goodness for that.  We live in a democracy, an imperfect democracy, but a democracy none the less.  Jesus was a Jew living in an occupied territory.  Israel was under the control of the Roman Empire. Because they were a people in an occupied territory, they had no rights.  They didn’t get a vote on who their leader was.  Even the Roman citizens didn’t get to choose their leader. They had an emperor—not an elected official. To complicate matters further, the Roman emperor considered himself a god and demanded the devotion of a god. There was no separation of religion and government.  That is impossible when the leader of the government portrays himself as a god. This put the Jews in a very difficult situation because the first commandment is to worship no other god but the one true God. 

            The Romans, while not known for their overall sensitivity, were fairly tolerant of other religions. They knew that the Jewish people would never worship another god.  The Jews would revolt before they did that.  The Romans were able to keep some modicum of peace by not forcing the Jews to worship the emperor.  But they did make them pay a tax…lots of taxes.  Those taxes were controversial because they actually supported the Roman occupation of Israel. The Jewish people were paying to be subjugated.  

In our story for today, there were two groups who came together to challenge Jesus.  We don’t know much about the Herodians.  There is only one other reference to them in the Bible.  People have assumed they were supporters of Herod who represented the Roman leadership. If that was the case, it was odd that they were teaming up with the Pharisees in trying to trap Jesus.  The Pharisees didn’t usually associate with Herod’s people. It just goes to show you how threatening Jesus was to every power structure that existed at the time. 

            They thought that they had the perfect question to trap Jesus. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?” If Jesus answered the question in a way that indicated that he supported the tax, he would alienate his Jewish followers.  If he said that they shouldn’t pay the tax, he could be accused of rebelling against Rome.  Instead of answering whether it was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, he asked for the coin…the coin that would be used to pay this particular tax.  He did not have the coin.  The people asking the question did.  That is an important detail to note.

wikipedia commons

            They brought him a denarius.  We know what was on that coin because archaeologists have found examples.  It had a picture of the emperor with the inscription: “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus Pontifex Maximus.”  Augustus was a smart man and a very effective emperor.  When he took power, he made himself not only political leader, but a religious one as well.  When he died, he was a declared a god, making his son, the son of god.  It was his son’s picture on the coin.  Even possessing this coin was considered idolatry in the Jewish faith.  It broke the first commandment. The Pharisees should not have even had the coin, but they did.  When Jesus asked for the coin, he was proving that he was not complicit with the Roman government, they were…especially if they were allying themselves with the Herodians. It was a brilliant way to point out their hypocrisy.

            Jesus’ answer to the question wasn’t clear.  I am not sure he meant it to be.  “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and to God, the things that are God’s.”  Jesus paid his taxes.  We know that from chapter 17 of Matthew.  We also know it because otherwise he would have been arrested a lot earlier.  It would have been impossible to remain in a land occupied by Rome and not pay taxes.  That doesn’t mean Jesus respected the emperor or agreed with the tax. He just knew that was what he had to do.  The more important part of this response from Jesus is the 2^nd half, the half people don’t quote nearly as often.  “Give  to God, the things that are God’s.” We know (in theory) that everything is God’s.  Everything in creation is God’s.  This isn’t Jesus demarcating a separation between God and the government.  Everything is God’s.  Caesar can have his coins, but that’s because God is allowing it.  God doesn’t want part of our love and commitment.  He wants all of it—not just the change in our pockets.

            One commentator summed it up like this, “Live with the emperor but live for God.”[1]  We live with and within the government.  We might ally ourselves with a political party or a certain leader, but that is not our identity---that is not the heart of who we are.  Our heart is with Jesus, the one true God. We can never stop living for God, because then we lose ourselves. 

When we say that God doesn’t have a place in our government or that our faith and our politics can never touch, then I fear that we are missing the bigger picture.  God has no interest in a portion of our loyalty.  He wants all of it and he wants all of us.  Politics is occupying  large part of our attention these days.  Can you imagine if we spent as much time worshipping and serving God as we do complaining about politics? Try it. Just for a day.  Then maybe we will understand what it means to “Live with the emperor but live for God.”

---

[1] http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=5458

Taxes, Money and Giving: October 21, 2017

Year A Pentecost 20                                                         

 

            I have never liked talking about money.  I know very few clergy who do, but there are some who are better than others. I am not one of them.  This is why I don’t talk about pledging very often. Last week was our Celebration Sunday, which is when we celebrate what God has given us by giving back. To put it more bluntly, it is when we ask people to turn in their pledges.  It seems that I talked about it so little, some people had no idea what was going on.  This was a lesson for me.  It was more of a reminder, because I know better.  First of all, preaching about money and giving is a good and necessary thing.  It is a huge part of life.  It is what God asks of us.  God asks us to be joyful givers.  Jesus talked more about money than he did about the poor or loving your neighbor. So I know that I need to talk about money. But then I thought, oh well, celebration Sunday was last Sunday, I can talk about it next year. Then I saw the Gospel for today.  Taxes, money, giving.  This is proof that God has a sense of humor.

            It is a clear from the very first verse of this passage what is going on.  “The Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said.”  Over the last few weeks, we have heard several parables that Jesus shared.  In most of these parables, the Pharisees were not portrayed well.  They came across as hypocritical, narrow minded and just plain wrong.  The Pharisees could not let these teachings continue, so they came up with a plan.  They devised the perfect question to entrap Jesus and then recruited Herodians to be with them when they asked the question. 

While we do not know a lot about the Herodians, we know that they were associated with King Herod.  They were Jewish, but were perceived to be closely allied with the Romans who had appointed Herod to be the king of the Jews.  This was especially offensive to most Jews because only God could appoint a king of the Jewish people.  The Pharisees and the Herodians did not usually get along. Thus to have these two groups working together implied that Jesus had upset not just the Pharisees and Chief Priests, but the Roman leadership as well.

            In this nation, we are divided on taxes.  How much should they be? Where should the income from the taxes go? In Jesus time, the Jewish people were extremely burdened by taxes.  Scholars estimate that there were 3-4 different taxes and most of the income from those taxes went to the Romans.  The Jewish tax money was helping pay for their imprisonment. I think we can all agree that would not be something we would support in this country.  The question was, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” If Jesus answered the question by saying that it was lawful to pay taxes to the Romans, he would have upset the Jews.  He would have lost many of his followers.  If he said that it was not lawful, he would have most likely been arrested by the Romans.  There was absolutely no good way to answer this question.   Jesus took another tactic.

            He told them, “Show me the coin used for the tax.”  In asking for a coin, he was first of all admitting that he did not have any coins.  Someone from the group who was trying to trap him with this tricky question handed him a denarius.  A denarius is a Roman coin.  It would have had a picture of Caesar with the words, “Tiberius Caesar, Son of the Divine Augustus Pontifex Maximus.”  This coin had  an engraved image of a Roman god, an idol.  Just having this coin would have technically meant that any Jew holding it would be breaking the first two commandments. 

            In some ways, the question about whether it was ok for Jews to pay taxes to the Roman was a fair question.  Yet the fact that the Jews asking the questions were the ones holding the coin indicates their hypocrisy.  They were asking if it was ok for them to participate in a system that they were already participating in.  That is why Jesus called them hypocrites.  Jesus really did not like hypocrites.  Remember, Jesus did not have the coin.  He had to ask for it.

            When he had it, he asked them whose image was on the coin.   It was the Emperor’s image.  Jesus then provided his now famous answer, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” In other words, if it has the emperor’s face on it, give it back to him.  A lot of people have used this response to help explain the divide between church and state or sacred and secular; as if Jesus was drawing a line between what was God’s and what was Caesar’s.  That was not the case.

            Jesus asked whose image is on the coin.  Whose image.  Think about the first chapter of Genesis. Genesis takes us through all of God’s creation.  After creating earth, water, plants, animals, God created male and female in his image.  We are made in the image of God.  Therefore when Jesus tells them to give the coin to Caesar because that is whose image is on the coin…well that is a very small thing compared to what and who bears the image to God.  We give coins to the leaders of this earth, but we give ourselves to God.  There is no divide between the sacred and the secular because every part of creation is sacred. 

            The reason talking about stewardship and pledges is difficult is not just because clergy don’t like to talk about money; it’s that talking about what stewardship really means is far too daunting.  Everything belongs to God.  We earn nothing because all we have is a gift from God.  That is a difficult thing to wrap your mind around especially when you have worked very hard for what you have.  But it also explains why giving of ourselves is part of what we do in church. 

In my last church, we had a very outgoing stewardship chair.  He had a deep southern accent and was a little pushy at times, but always charming.  He loved the church.  Once I saw him sidle up to someone in the hall before the service.  It was not someone I saw regularly, not someone I would have expected to pledge.  He put his hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “Dan, do we have your commitment.” Dan looked a little confused.  The stewardship chair stopped so Dan would have to look at him.  “Your commitment.  Are you committed to this church?” He was so earnest.  It even made me uncomfortable.  Yet it made me think of what it would be like to be cornered by Jesus.  What would it be like to have Jesus pull you aside, look into your eyes and say, “Do I have your commitment?”   That is what he asks each one of us every minute of every day.  Are we committed to him? Only you know that answer.    

Oct. 26, 2014: Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Shattered Dreams

Year A, Pentecost 20                                       

 

            In a sermon Martin Luther King said that “Life is a continual story of shattered dreams.”[1]  This was not the “I have a dream” speech that he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.  This line came from a sermon that he gave 5 years later, 15 years after he had taken a leadership role in the civil rights movement.   The Biblical text he was preaching on was about King David and his dream of building a great temple.  God did not want King David to build a temple and so it did not happen.  While King David had many accomplishments in his life, this was one thing that remained unfinished, a dream that was never realized, at least not in his lifetime.

            Our Old Testament reading for today is not about King David.  This story comes before David.   It is another great leader of the Jewish faith and the Christian faith as well, Moses.  We have been hearing about Moses for several weeks now in our lectionary readings but we have only touched briefly on his life.  We’ve had glimpses of it in our readings.  We heard about the time when Moses was first called by God with a blaze of fire…a burning bush.  From the bush God called to Moses and asked him to lead his people out of Egypt.  He promised that the people would be led to a land flowing with milk and honey, a land that had been promised to them for generations. 

            Moses was not particularly excited about this assignment, but God promised that he would be with him the whole way, that he would lead him.  So Moses did as he was asked…he led the people out of Egypt.  It was not an easy escape.  There were plagues. There were armies.  There was a wall of water that they had to pass through.  Yet even with all of that accomplished, there was no immediate entrance into land of milk and honey.  Instead, the Israelites found themselves wandering in the desert.  They faced starvation and insurrection.  Moses dealt with their complaints.  In the midst of the trials, he also had moments of joy and fulfillment.  He witnessed God’s glory and received the Ten Commandments.   But he was challenged again and again by very strong willed and frustrated people.  He complained to God and was bitter at times.  His sister died.  His brother died.  An entire generation passed as he led the people on a journey that felt more like a maze.  But finally the end was near.  They could see the Promised Land.  Yet for Moses, it would remain slightly out of reach. 

            God told him as he stood on the mountain top, “I will give it to your descendants; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.”  This was not the first time God has told Moses that he would not reach the Promised Land.  God had warned him and even gave him a reason. Yet the reason was murky…so murky that people have been debating it ever since. It was a small thing, perhaps an act of disobedience or even a brief moment where he lacked faith. 

It is strange that one small act would outweigh all of the wonderful things that Moses had done; the sacrifices he made, the close relationship that he had with God.  It has been a mystery for centuries why God would lead him to this place, show him this dream, but not even give him a moment in that land that he had been searching for—for over 40 years. 

“Life is a continual story of shattered dreams.”  There have been many people, great people---Godly people who have accomplished amazing things but died before they could see the fruits of their labor:  Abraham Lincoln, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Kennedy,  Martin Luther King, Gandhi…just to name a few.  Their deaths are tragic and heart breaking.  But their lives are inspiring stories.  What makes these stories inspiring is that while their lives were cut short, their vision lived on. Those dreams that seemed shattered were resurrected by people who followed them…perhaps not completely resurrected, but new life was breathed into them.

Most of us might struggle to identify with these great saints.  Our dreams might be on a smaller scale.  Yet each person here has seen a dream that was shattered in some way.  And we could let those shattered hopes and dreams break us, leaving us battered and beaten.  Or we could take these pieces… pieces of our shattered dreams or even those dreams of people who came before and we can build something new. 

When Martin Luther King spoke of shattered dreams, he was talking about King David and his own experience as well.  While today’s reading is not the story of King David, Moses did pave the way for King David.  He brought the people to the Promised Land, the land that King David would one day rule.  Without his sacrifice and his obedience to God’s word, there would never have even been a dream of a temple.  It would not have even been in the realm of possibility.  One person’s shattered dream provided the pieces for another person’s temple…for God’s temple. 

During the celebration of communion, there is a point where the priest holds up the host and says, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”  Then the priest breaks the host.  That breaking of the host is meant to remind us of Christ broken on the cross.   It also reminds us of the way that we are broken.   After these words the priest breaks up the host even further so it is 24 pieces, pieces that are then distributed to you, the body of Christ.  We share in the brokenness of Christ and in some ways that makes Christ whole again because we have all shared in that as the body of Christ.  In those same ways, we can share the broken pieces of our lives with one another and with God.  That is one of the ways that we can find wholeness.

Moses might have never reached the Promised Land.  He did not feel the land under his feet, but he saw it with his own eyes, with God right beside him.  Not only that, but he knew that the people who he had led would experience that Promised Land.  Sometimes that is what faith is about.  It is about working with broken pieces---either our broken pieces or ones that other people have given up on.  It is about placing our hopes in things that we may never see.  But the important thing is that we never stop trying. Moses was told that he would never reach the Promised Land, but he never stopped walking and frankly, I don’t think he ever stopped hoping.   

When he died, God buried him.  The English just says that he was buried, but there was only one person (one being) with him on the mountain. God.  While it might seem as though God punished him, the truth is that he was with him to the very end…even at death.  Just try to picture that in your head, the Almighty God digging in the dirt and then with great care placing the body of Moses in the ground.   That is how God cares for each of us.  In turn he asks us to never give up…to take those broken pieces and build them into something new, something beautiful. 

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[1] http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/unfulfilled_dreams/