Seeking First

SJF • Epiphany 8a 2011 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

I’m not sure about you, but as far as I’m concerned that doesn’t have quite the ring of, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” But whatever the translation, old or new, authorized by King James or revised in the late 20th century, the sentiment is as clear as day, and what a sentiment it is! On this eighth Sunday after the Epiphany we come to the end of our readings in Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. It really does end on an up-beat doesn’t it?

But let us not mistake the upbeat quality of this passage. It is not merely the cheery optimism of a Bobby McFaren sort of world where we can all just sing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Let us not mistake it for the kind of blind optimism displayed in Voltaire’s book and Bernstein’s musical Candide — in which the principal characters keep on smiling through plague, kidnap, pirates, mayhem and murder because they believe themselves to inhabit the best of all possible worlds! It is not blind optimism we are called to, but a careful and perceptive seeking after what is of true worth, a careful and persistent seeking and striving for God — and God’s righteousness. It is in that holy quest that we will find all things added unto us.

There is much more to Jesus’ teaching in this passage from the Sermon on the Mount than looking on the sunny side of the street or letting a smile be your umbrella! No, my friends, this teaching is about a life based on what is important, focused on the right goal, and leading to the right end, under the grace of God: to strive, as we saw in last week’s gospel passage, after God’s perfection and holiness.

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So let’s follow that advice, and take a closer look, and start at the beginning. Jesus begins by warning us of the impossibility of serving God and wealth. Notice he says, “serve.” How many people who seek after wealth find themselves serving their wealth rather than enjoying it or benefitting from it. I have to say I feel a bit like that in relation to my computer: in principle it is supposed to work for me, to help me do my work, but there are times that I feel like I am serving it. I carefully protect it from viruses and spam, I patiently wait for it to install its never-ending stream of updates and patches letting it complete its work so that I can actually get to some of my work!

So when it comes to the things of this world, including money, the question, “Whom do you serve?” is a good one to ask — it is a good reminder that money exists to serve us as a medium of exchange, and we are to employ it, and not to be employed by it — or worse, be enslaved by it.

Jesus follows this up with a “therefore” — always an important word when looking to implications — since we are obviously called to serve God rather than wealth, therefore we are not to become worried — about our life or food or drink, or what we will wear. If we serve God, God will provide for his servants.

Think of what happens to people who spend their whole life thinking or talking about nothing but food or clothing — apart from the fact that it’s really boring! — are they any better off in the end than those who simply wear what is suitable and comfortable and eat what is set before them?

Jesus offers a startling pair of images: the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. The birds are not farmers, nor do they store up a supply of food. (It’s a good thing Jesus didn’t have squirrels on his mind, or Aesop’s fable of the grasshopper and the ant!) Birds don’t store things up; they eat what they can find day by day, whether its an early bird catching the worm or a flock o pigeons pecking up birdseed on the sidewalk, or geese carefully trimming the grass on the Bronx River Parkway. Jesus reminds us that God provides for them — and don’t we mean more to God than birds do?

And look at the flowers in all their glory of their color and finery — I mean it: check out the Bronx Botanical Garden some time if you want to see some spectacular beauty — for none of which did the flowers do a lick of work. If God provides such beauty to clothe things that live for a few days or weeks, how much more will he clothe and adorn us — we of little faith!

And so, again, therefore: do not worry about what you are going to eat or what you are going to drink or what you are going to wear. These are the things the Gentiles spend all their time worrying about — and by “Gentiles” Jesus really means people who don’t know God. These are the people not just of little faith but of no faith at all because they worship idols and false gods that are no gods: the literal idols of stone or metal, or the more insidious idols of wealth and fame and glamour — the junk food of the soul. They are far from God and God’s righteousness because they do not seek God or God’s kingdom; they seek only to grab what they can and fill their bellies with what they can amass.

But you — that’s us — do not strive for, do not seek, these things, Jesus assures us. God knows well enough that we need food and clothing; and God will provide. Strive for and seek God and the righteousness of God and all the rest will be thrown in.

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C S Lewis, the author of the Narnia stories, once made a sound observation. He said that if you study world history, that study will show “that Christians who did most for the present world were those who thought the most about the next.... It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they become ineffective in this one. Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you will get neither.”

That last bit may be a little too strongly worded — Lewis wasn’t known to his friends as “Bluff Jack” for nothing! and he was known to be plain-spoken and direct — but this little saying does sit well with the teaching of Jesus concerning where we should focus our attention, and what we should strive for and seek. Remember that Jesus also said, What does it profit one to gain the whole world if he loses his soul? We are called to aim high — to aim for heaven, as Lewis said. Even in earthly things, doesn’t it make sense to aim high? To let your reach exceed your grasp? To aim beyond, and to seek the higher things?

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On this last Sunday in Black History Month I want to share a story that Jesse Jackson told some years ago. It was in an article in The New Yorker (2.10.92) as he reminisced about his first day in sixth grade. His teacher was Miss Shelton, and she began the class by turning to the blackboard and writing these long words on it, words the children in that class didn’t understand and had never even heard of before. The kids all looked around and started whispering to each other, “She got the wrong class. She thinks we the eighth grade class!” Soon enough somebody in the class got the courage to yell out, “Uh, Miss Shelton. Those are eighth-grade words. We only the sixth grade here.”

Miss Shelton stopped writing and turned around. She peered over the top of her eyeglasses and surveyed the room with a keen eye. “I know what grade you are,” she said. “I work here. And you will learn every one of these words, and a lot more like them, before this year is over. I will not teach down to you. One of you little brats just might be mayor or governor, or even president, one day, and I’m going to make sure you’ll be ready!” And she turned back to the blackboard and went right on writing those long scary words.

That moment, that wonderful moment, started something in Jesse Jackson’s heart. To think that one of the children in that classroom, one of his classmates, maybe even himself, might be mayor, or governor, or even president one day — when in that town at that time there wasn’t a single African-American even on the school board.

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God challenges us, he gives challenging words to us, through Christ. He will not teach down to us. All through the sermon on the mount he has taught and sought to bring us up to him, up to his standards and his vision and his call for each and every one of us. He will speak to us sometimes of words we do not understand, of things we do not know. But he knows us, beloved, he knows each and every one of us. He knows we are worth more than many sparrows, worth more than all the botanical gardens in the world. And he calls us, each and every one of us, to seek his kingdom and his righteousness, putting our trust in him. He knows that one of us little brats might be mayor, or governor, or even president one day. And more than that, he knows that one day we will be with him where he is and live with him for ever. Aim for that, my friends, aim for that.+

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You Are Better Than That

SJF • Epiphany 7a 2011 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
If you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

We continue our Gospel readings from the Sermon on the Mount and pick up on a theme that is woven through the whole of the text up to this point. We began by speaking about meekness as a humble acknowledgment of exactly where one stands, and not being afraid to stand there. This led to seeing Jesus calling each of us to be what we are — truly to live up to all God has gifted us with. Then last week we saw Jesus sharpen and refine the Law of Moses, getting at the Spirit behind the letter of the law, and calling us to faithfulness, honesty, fidelity and truth.

This week the gospel continues to challenge us, not just to be who we are, or to be all that we can be, but to be even better than that. “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Now that is a challenge if ever there was one. Most of has have a hard enough time being fair to middling, let alone being good — and we know in our better moments (or perhaps even our best moments) that we are very far from being perfect!

I mentioned in an earlier sermon in this series how people will sometimes say, “Be a man,” to someone who is not acting as he ought to — particularly when showing fear or cowardice. And today’s reading reminds me of another phrase you are likely to hear addressed to people, man or woman, young or old, who are not acting as they should. It is a phrase that expresses both disappointment and hope. And that phrase is, “You are better than that.”

I noted what was odd about that first phrase; that you can say “Be a man!” to one who to all intents and purposes is a man. And what is odd about, “You are better than that” is that since the ones to whom it is being said are acting badly, just what evidence is there that he or she is better than that. Maybe they are just as bad as they are acting at that moment!

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And yet we know we are called to be better than we often act. This is part of the challenge of life lived as a disciple — which means to be a student, to be one who learns, one who follows a teacher. If people didn’t need to learn anything, who would study? If we thought we were already perfect, who would go on trying to improve him or herself. As Jesus would also say, it is the sick who are in need of a physician! We come to our senses, so to speak, when we become aware of our imperfections — whether we are made aware of them by our own conscience speaking inwardly, or the voice of a friend or mentor or teacher speaking outwardly, facing us with that truly honest assessment, “You are better than that.”

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In his sermon on the mount, Jesus provided a measuring rod by which we could see where we might stand on that ladder of perfection. It is the law quoted from the book of Leviticus, from which we heard the original setting and context in the first reading from the Old Testament today. It is, by the way, the only Law that Jesus quoted from that most technical law-book of the Torah, perhaps because it does form such a useful summary: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Most of the laws in this section of Leviticus deal with rules that were already “on the books” — or at least on the tablets, the ones handed down at Mount Sinai: you know the ones: not to steal or to swear falsely or to profane God’s name. Some of the laws edge over into what we would call fair business practice: not to commit fraud or to withhold a worker’s pay. Some of the laws deal with cruelty or mischief — as if anyone needed to be told not to mock the deaf or not to put stumbling blocks in the way of the blind! (Though given the state of the world I suppose such things do need to be spelled out sometimes.)

But in the midst of all of these familiar and logical rules is one that sticks out as going beyond just being fair, to being generous. That is the law that instructs people not to reap right up to the edges of their fields, but to leave some of their own crops unharvested — a portion of the grain and the grapes alike are to be left unharvested so that the poor can gather them. And it is important to note that this section of Moses’ law-book is framed with the words, “You shall be holy as I the Lord your God am holy” at the beginning, and “I am the Lord your God” at the end. This section of Leviticus is sometimes called, “The Holiness Code.” In it, God calls his people to be holy, to be as holy as he is. Is there an echo of that in Jesus’ teaching, “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect”?

For what else does it mean to go beyond the minimum of loving your neighbor as yourself? Just as Jesus sharpened the scope of the other laws, Jesus says we need to go beyond kindness just for our neighbors, our friends and family; but show it to our enemies and our persecutors. Just as the owners of field or vineyard are not to strip their fields and vines for their own use and their own families’ use, but to leave them, to leave what is left for the strangers, the wayfarers, the poor; so too we are called to go beyond doing good to those who do us good, but even to bless and pray for those who do us harm. As Jesus says, if you greet only your siblings, you are only doing what comes natural, nothing worthy of praise.

Jesus calls us to be like God in his generous perfection: God who sends rain on good and on bad, whose sun shines on the righteous and the unrighteous. Jesus calls his followers literally to “go the extra mile” and “turn the other cheek” — and in case you ever wondered where those expressions came from, here they are! We are called to be better than that.

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It has been said that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who say that there are two kinds of people in the world, and everybody else. Among those who don’t divide the world into two kinds of people, there was once a wise old rabbi who divided the world into four kinds of people. The saying is so old that it isn’t even recorded which of the wise old rabbis said it, but this is what he said (in my own somewhat updated version!):

Of the four kinds of people, there are the ones who say, “What is mine is mine and what is yours is yours” — this is a selfish person; such a one, if he saw his house and your house were both on fire, would put out the fire at his house but leave yours to burn!

Then there are the ones who say, “What is mine is yours and what is yours is mine” — and that is either meshuggeh or no better than children swapping their sandwiches at lunch.

Then there are the ones who say, “What is mine is mine and what is yours is mine” — and that is a villain.

But then there are those who say, “What is yours is yours and what is mine is yours” — and these are the saints. (Pirke Avot 5:10)

As we are reminded from time to time, we are called to be saints; and in our Gospel today Jesus urges us to this perfection, the doing of good not only to those who favor us, of doing good not only for our friends and family, but even for those who hold us in contempt; to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile.

When I was a child, an annual ritual included standing in a doorway and having my height marked in pencil on the woodwork of the door-frame. I would always try to stand as tall as I could, to somehow get that pencil mark up a little higher. I think in the long run I failed in that; but I do seek — and I hope you do too — always seek to be better than I am.

What are the marks on your doorways? What are the grapes or grain you could leave untouched for others to be nourished by? Perhaps it’s the left-behind wheat and grapes that go to make the bread and wine that become God’s Body and Blood.

What extra miles have you trodden, or coats or cloaks provided — and has your cheek ever felt the sting of an unearned slap, and yet you’ve not returned it with a blow or protest?

These are the questions, brothers and sisters, that point us on the road to perfection, the road we are called to follow as disciples, challenged by our Lord to be better than we are, and to seek the perfection of God’s heavenly kingdom; where Father, Son and Holy Spirit live and reign, One God, now and forever.+

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The New Moses

SJF • Epiphany 6a 2011 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
Moses said, “See I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity... Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him.

We continue our readings today in Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. In this passage Jesus speaks particularly about a number of passages from the Law of Moses, several of them from the Ten Commandments. In this, Jesus is taking on the role of a New Moses — he is, after all, as Matthew emphasizes, giving this teaching about the Law on a mountain, just as Moses received the Law from the hand of God on another mountain.

Matthew and others in the early church got the message about a new Moses appearing on the scene to teach the people, based on a promise Moses himself made in Deuteronomy, his farewell address to his people in chapter 18. He said, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.” (18:15) Matthew wasn’t the only one who saw Jesus as fulfilling this promise. Simon Peter quoted those very words from Deuteronomy to the same effect when he defended himself before the people for having healed the afflicted man who sat by the Beautiful Gate, a scene from Acts 3 portrayed in the stained glass window just around the corner from me. Peter proclaimed that he worked this miracle through the power of God made known in Jesus, and through the faith of Jesus Christ, and he quoted that passage from Deuteronomy. This Jesus, whom God raised from the dead, is the fulfillment of Moses’ promise, and more.

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So what, acting as the new Moses, what does Jesus do in this portion of his sermon on the mountain? We are accustomed to thinking of Jesus as the one with the light touch, the lenient and tolerant one who forgives; the generous one. And indeed he is that — when dealing with individuals, especially individuals demeaned and judged by others, or those willing to throw themselves on the mercy of the court. In those cases Jesus is acting as a pastor — the best pastor, the Good Shepherd! In those cases, such as the one where he stands up for the woman caught in the very act of adultery, Jesus acts as a defense attorney.

But on the mountain Jesus is acting as a new Moses, as a supreme court judge who is giving a strict interpretation of the Law to those who have sought loopholes or made excuses. Here Jesus cuts through the evasive undergrowth to get to the spirit undergirding each law. And in this cutting to the core each law ends up being sharper and more demanding, not easier and more casual. Just as when you sharpen a knife: there is actually a little less of it — you have actually ground some of it away — but it is sharper than ever.

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Our reading from Deuteronomy sets the stage for this, showing Moses presenting the commandments of God, and following them or not, as a matter of life or death. This is not just idle speculation or trivial argument about nonessentials. This is a turning point in the history of God’s people, a decision made before crossing the Jordan; as weighty a matter for them as crossing the Rubicon was for Julius Caesar. The Law of Moses will be a source of life or a source of death, depending on how it is treated. It is like a very useful tool — a very sharp knife indeed — that comes with a warning note on the box advising just how sharp and dangerous it is. If you obey the commandments, using them in the way God intends, you will live and prosper; but if you are careless, or misuse the tool, you will fail and die.

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As I say, Jesus raises the ante — if you think getting beyond matters of life and death can be raised, seen, and called. But this is a game of strip poker Jesus is playing: He strips away all of the protective padding in which the Law had become encased over time, all those evasions and excuses, to get to its sharp and dangerous core. In the passage we heard today, Jesus addresses murder, adultery and swearing falsely — three commandments from among the Big Ten delivered on that other mountain, and he polishes the sharpness of these Laws so they cut like Ginzu knives!

He starts by quoting the law, “You shall not murder,” but immediately gets beyond the letter of the law to the spirit, beyond the crime itself to the evil energies that lead to the crime. He is like a good detective addressing the murder mystery by looking at the motives that lead to and underlay the crime: anger, hatred, insult, and dissension.

He takes up another of the 10 Commandments: “You shall not commit adultery.” But once again, he clarifies that it is what lies behind and beneath adultery — that is the real problem — the lustful eye that casts its gaze on another man’s woman, or the dismissive and unloving spirit that sends a wife away with just a piece of paper.

Finally, at least in the portion assigned for today, he summarizes another set of commandments from different parts of the law — not just from Sinai — under a single principle: “You shall not swear falsely.” But then he tosses even this basic principle aside to affirm one even more basic: do not swear at all and risk not being able to follow through on your promise, but simply say Yes or No, and then take or refrain from action, as appropriate.

In each of these moral situations Jesus sharpens the knife: he provides those who first heard him preaching from the mountainside, and us, with principles that are after all easier to understand than the complexities of the Law, with all those evasions and loopholes, but perhaps harder to follow and more demanding to obey. This passage, especially the part about plucking out your eye or cutting off your hand if either of them leads you to sin, is considered to be one of the “hard sayings of Jesus” the things that some Christians, including a few preachers, would like to soften and explain away. Volumes have been written by those attempting to make Jesus mean something other than what he said.

In doing so, such commentators attempt to redo the very thing that Jesus wants to undo: they want to dull the edge of the moral conscience; to wrap it in the cotton wool of legalism, to put it on a shelf out of sight and out of mind; to find a likely suspect and convict him rather than do the hard detective work of ferreting out the motive that led to the crime; or to cry out in this game of poker, ‘all bets are off.’

But Jesus will not have it so: and if we are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world — as he told us in last week’s portion from this gospel — then we should not have it so either. Rather let us look into our hearts and our consciences with the same piercing examination, and honest evaluation, that Jesus calls us to. The sharp knife of discernment and judgment is like the surgeon’s scalpel; or like the knife that young man used to cut off his own arm when trapped by a boulder (you can even see the movie!). It is one thing to save your body by being willing to sacrifice your arm. How much more vital to save one’s immortal soul by allowing the Good Physician to heal us and restore us by his sharp teaching.

You have heard what was said by Moses; and you have heard what Jesus had to say. May each of us choose wisely, for it is life or death that awaits us, and the choice is ours to make.+

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Be What You Are

SJF • Epiphany 5a 2011 • Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.

Today our Gospel reading continues with a section of the Sermon on the Mount, and the theme with which this portion picks up relates to the theme from last week. As you recall, I spoke about the meaning of meekness as knowing how and where one stands both with God and with other people, neither blown up with pride nor groveling in false humility.

Today we continue with this idea of “being what you are.” Jesus gives two telling examples to make this point. He speaks of salt that has lost its saltiness, and a lamp hidden under a bushel basket. Neither the salt or the lamp is good for very much in these situations, for it is the saltiness of salt that gives it its purpose, and the light of a lamp that gives it its usefulness.

Here is a more modern example. This little pocket flashlight was a promotional giveaway that I picked up at some conference or other a few years ago. It no longer works, the battery is dead. But it doesn’t open — it is self-sealed in plastic — so there is no way to replace or to charge the battery. It is, as Jesus would say, good for nothing but to be thrown out — and now that I’ve dug it out of the bottom of the desk drawer to which it had found its way, that is exactly what I plan to do! I suppose I should in all charity towards the flashlight acknowledge that it has served one final purpose — as a sermon illustration! But I fear that is a bit like saying that a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day.

The real point is that a thing that can no longer fulfill the function for which it was designed — while it just might have some other use — is more likely taking up space and serving no purpose — it is good for nothing. This is why the image with which Jesus begins is so telling: salt that isn’t salty really isn’t good for anything — and a lamp — or a flashlight — that doesn’t shine a light is a waste of space.

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Now, of course, Jesus is using these images to provoke the people to whom he speaks — and that includes us! It is we who are the salt of the earth, and the light of the world: and if we lose our saltiness or hide our light, we are not being what we are meant to be, and equipped to be, designed to be, by God.

It is a funny thing about people — as I observed last week talking about meekness — that people often want to make themselves out to be more than they are, and they often treat others or themselves as less than they are. The hardest thing, it seems, is for us to simply be what we are!

If I can quote one of my favorite preachers, an old friend who died a few years ago, Canon Richard Norris: He observed that people will often say to themselves or others such things as, “Act your age!” or “Be a man!” He said, “No one would think of saying to a penguin, ‘Be a penguin,’ or to a cat, ‘Be a cat.’” The penguin would likely give you a strange look and just go on being a penguin; and the cat... well no one can really tell a cat anything. “And yet,” Norris continued, “Wewill say to a man, “‘Be a man!’” It appears we recognize that we human beings, unlike penguins or cats, often act as if we were not what we are.

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And of course, that comes about because we so often act as if we were less than we are. We deny our gifts, fail to share what we have, perhaps because we fear it will not be enough, or that people will think less of us if they see us as we do ourselves — not as we are, but low in our own estimation in spite of God’s powerful promise and charge. “You are the salt of the earth! You are the light of the world!” Jesus assures us of both. Perhaps salt is not such a telling image in our time, when salt is easily available and our diets actually contain too much of it! But in the ancient world, salt was a valuable commodity with many uses, in some places worth its weight in gold. And it is good to remember that the amount rationed out to every Roman soldier gave rise to a modern word with which we are all familiar: salary.

So imagine Jesus is saying, “You are worth your weight in gold!” and perhaps you will get some sense of how valuable each of us is in his service. The point is that, like the gold talent buried in the ground instead of being invested in trade, we dare not hide our gifts or let them rest idle, but put them to use: to be what we are. You know the slogan, no doubt, “Be all that you can be!” That starts with being what you already are, accepting your gifts and putting them to work through practice. Practice: That is, as the old joke has it, how to get to Carnegie Hall!

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You all know that the verse, “Let your light so shine before others,” has long standing as anoffertory sentence, used just before the collection of the people’s offerings. That is taking the relation of salt with salary literally! And far be it from me to limit the reality that our offerings play in keeping the church functioning,
from the prosaic matters of heat and light on up to all the work of prayer and praise. We all know too well that these lights won’t shine if we don’t pay Con Ed!

But being a shining light or the salt of the earth means so much more. We are, as Jesus assures us, gifted with many capacities to be salt and light — to be what we are and rejoice in all that we can be. We each of us have many gifts that we may not be using for the service of God, the praise of God, to the glory of God. Let us not adopt a false modesty that says, “Who am I?” God knows who you are, who each of us is, and knows we are worth our weight in gold, salt of the earth and the light of the world. Let us not, as the Lord challenged us through Isaiah, engage in the wrong kind of fast, a groveling in sackcloth and ashes, and bowing our heads like a bulrush, acting as if we were less than we are. Let us rather rise up to break the yoke of injustice, to feed the hungry and set free the captive, using all we have to those ends. What a shame it would be if we did not make use of who we are to help make this world a better place, a more loving place, a more just and peaceful place.

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A wise old man, Rabbi Zusya, used to say, “When I come before the throne of the Holy One, Blessed be He, He will not say to me, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ or ‘Why were you not Elijah?’ He will say to me, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’” We are the salt of the earth, the seasoning that preserves it and gives it flavor. We are the light of the world, called to be lights to each other and to those who live in the darkness of fear and ignorance. Let us be who we are, sisters and brothers, and put our gifts to work for God and God’s kingdom, making the most of all the skills and talents with which we are equipped by the grace of God, through the Spirit of God and to the glory of God. In whose name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we commit ourselves in service.+

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