Two Eyes

By Keith E Gatling         Sermon for August 21, 2011

Lessons for Pentecost 10 [21] in Year A

Isaiah 51:1–6

Psalm 138

Romans 12:1–8

Matthew 16:13–20

If you’re not already doing it, I’d like you to look at me for a minute. And now we’re gonna play doctor…eye doctor, that is.

Cover your left eye. Everything seems just fine, right? OK, good. Now cover your right eye. Same there? Cool.

I like it when Paul talks about the Church as being the body of Christ, and how that body has many members. He talks about it in First Corinthians, chapter 12, which I preached on ten years ago, and he talks about it in Romans 12, which we just heard a few moments ago.

One of the very important things about that body is that each of its members has its own important role. He says:

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.

We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.

OK. That seems pretty straightforward. We each have different jobs, and they need to be done well. In his more well-known passage about the body he goes on to say

…if the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?

In both sets of passages Paul talks about how all the parts of the body are needed. Both for our regular human bodies, and the metaphorical body of Christ. And we all understand that each part is important, and that all the parts need to work well with each other, with no part being able to say that it doesn’t need the other.

I can tell you from personal experience that when the parts of the body that you notice the least stop functioning, all of a sudden, everything changes. Some of you may not know that last year I was diagnosed with type-1 diabetes and boy, what I wouldn’t give for a working pancreas these days. There are many people sitting right here who are the pancreas of Christ. You don’t really notice them because the work they do may not seem as glamorous as the work done by the hands of Christ, the feet of Christ, or even the mouth of Christ; and it’s done quietly and in the background. But let me tell you, when the pancreas of Christ stops working, all the other parts suffer.

So we know that all the parts of the body are needed, and that one shouldn’t say to the other “I don’t need you because I’m more important.” We know that the eye shouldn’t say that to the ear, or the ear to the nose, or the nose to…the pancreas.

But what about the eye to the eye? Or the ear to the ear?

I was thinking about this one day as I considered the problems we have when people just see things differently. And I’m not just talking about the ELCA here. It happens in every denomination, in every congregation; it happens in every family.

I thought about how it is that congregations and entire denominations sometimes split because two factions see things differently, with each side seeing themselves as right and the other as wrong. Sometimes it takes an outsider, with no history with either side, to come in, look at the arguing, and laugh.

Why laugh? Because the outsider can see that the two sides agree on 95% of the issues, and are talking about splitting over 5%. And so she laughs. She laughs because of the ridiculousness of the situation, and because she sees that the two sides don’t understand just how much they need each other. They think they’d be better off without those people who are so obviously wrong, and who just don’t understand scripture correctly. But she knows that they need each other.

What does this have to do with Paul? What does this have to do with our little eye test of a few minutes ago? Hold on, I’m getting there.

And so as I thought about all of these battles that occur in congregations and denominations between factions arguing that the other side just doesn’t see things the right way, I wondered why God made us so that we couldn’t all see the same way. Wouldn’t that make things so much easier?

And then it hit me. And then I got the perspective that one only has if you have…two eyes.

I want you to do that little eye test again, but this time we’re gonna try something different. I want you to grab a hymnal and put it in your lap. Look at it. OK, no biggie, right?

Now cover your left eye and look at it. The view changes a little bit, doesn’t it? You’re not quite seeing it the same way as you did before, are you? OK, now switch up the eyes. It looks a little different when you’re only using your left eye to look at it, doesn’t it?

Now let me ask you this question: which eye is seeing it the right way? Aha…is there a right way to see it?

Well, let’s say…just for the moment…that there is a right way to see it. I’m left-handed, so I’m gonna go with that. I’ll say that the way the left eye sees things is the proper way. So to get my right eye to see things the way my left eye does, I move the hymnal a few inches to the right. But what happens? Your right eye is seeing the hymnal the way the left eye did a few moments ago, but now the left eye is seeing the hymnal differently because it’s been moved.

In fact, the left eye and the right eye are never going to see things exactly the same way. Ever. They’re positioned in such a way that they’ll always see things slightly differently.

Now let’s not get ridiculous about it. It’s not like one eye will see a horse while the other sees an elephant. But they will always have slightly different views of the same thing.

And this is a good thing.

Because when both eyes see things slightly differently, and work together, we get a sense of perspective…literally. If both eyes saw the exact same thing the exact same way, we’d live in a world that seemed very flat. If you know someone who’s lost an eye, or lost the vision in one eye, think about how difficult it is to move around in three-dimensional space when you’re only getting half the picture.

Ah…does the left eye say to the right eye “I don’t want to work with you unless you see things exactly the same way I do?” Of course not!

We all see things differently. Two kids growing up in the same family experience that family in very different ways; and it’s not just the obvious case of the older sibling remembering a time when there was no younger one, or the sister having a different experience than the brother. It’s been shown that even identical twins have different experiences within the same family.

And our different experiences within our families and communities, the different things we’ve seen and read, and the different people we’ve been loved or hurt by, all make us see things slightly differently, and lead us all to bring something a little different to the table.

Or rather, they make each of us a different eye. One of us is the left eye of a tall person while the other is the right eye of a short person, and someone else is the right eye of a short person who is very nearsighted. We all see things differently, and perhaps are supposed to…so that the body of Christ has a sense of perspective, and is able to more clearly focus on things in the distance without tripping over the things close at hand.

We spend too much time trying to get all the other eyes to see things exactly as we do. We Lutherans take a great deal of pride in the fact that Martin Luther would rather leave than cave to the demands of the Catholic church.

Except that that ain’t how it happened. He didn’t leave. He was thrown out. He was willing to discuss and to be the other eye that helped give the church a needed sense of perspective. But the Pope had other ideas.

Ironically, and sadly the shoe ended up on the other foot later in Luther’s life. Many of you have heard of the absolutely horrible things he had written about the Jews, things that we modern Lutherans officially disavow – especially in the light of the Holocaust. But why did he write them?

There are many theories. One is that he had written them after he had had a stroke and so his mind…and heart…weren’t firing on all cylinders in the first place. Another, though, is that he figured that the reason that the Jews had not accepted Jesus as the Son of God was because of the obvious corruption of the Catholic Church, and that once he explained things to them, they’d be convinced and convert. Surely he could make the right eye see things as the left eye did.

But when he wasn’t successful, he went ballistic, and wrote those tracts that we’re so ashamed of. He wasn’t able to see as the right eye did and they weren’t able to see as the left eye did; and rather than consider that maybe the other eye helps to give us all a sense of perspective about God, he decided that the other eye should be gouged out.

How often do we do this within the church? Too often, I’m afraid.

We are not all going to see things the same way. Two people in the same Bible study group will come up with three opinions. But that doesn’t mean that we argue with each other until one person wins and one person either caves or leaves. It means that when we understand that we see things 95% the same, we also understand that the 5% where we see things differently are part of a greater truth, and help to give us the sense of perspective that we need as the body of Christ.

I have a challenge for you. I want you to find someone who you know you disagree with on an issue – that should be easy, just check out the bumper stickers on the cars in the lot - and I want you to talk about that issue, where you agree, and where you disagree. And then I want you to see if maybe your disagreement is really only on the edges of what you actually agree about. I want you to see if, rather than becoming all defensive about your own opinion, if perhaps the other person’s opinion can give you some needed perspective on your own, and then to see if you can work together as the eyes of Christ.

Because according to Paul, the left eye should not tell the right eye that it’s not needed.

And this is most certainly true!

The Steward Who Used His Head

By Keith E Gatling         Sermon for September 20, 1998

Lessons Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 20) - Year C

Amos 8:4-7

Psalm 113

1 Timothy 2:1-7

Luke 16:1-13

If you’re a regular here, you’re probably aware of a certain running gag between Anita and myself whenever we have to preach when Pastor Paul’s away. However, for the benefit of those of you who don’t know the gag, I’ll bring you up to date.

Basically, when it’s time to pick a weekend to preach, I look at the assigned lessons first, and pick my preaching assignments based on what I think I can do with those lessons. Anita, on the other hand, is a little braver than I, picking her preaching assignments solely by the date. So far she claims to have been burned twice and is now considering using my technique, and ironically the two she thought were hard would’ve been easy ones for me.

Well, there’s a third technique for picking preaching assignments that we haven’t mentioned. It’s the “you’re the head deacon, everyone else has picked their weekends, and this is what’s left” method. And that’s how it came to pass that I got to preach on a bunch of lessons that many pastors have a hard time with. One tends to wonder if Pastor Paul knew these lessons were coming up when he planned to be away this weekend.

Now, to be fair, most people would have absolutely no problem preaching on the Old Testament lesson from Amos, about the rich cheating the poor, and most listeners would have no problem understanding it.

Similarly, most people would have no problem preaching on the New Testament lesson from Timothy, and most listeners would have no problem understanding it…especially since the bit about praying for leaders in government seems to be a hot topic lately.

The toughie. The one that people have a hard time preaching on and understanding…and, of course, the one I’m going to preach on…is the Gospel lesson from Luke. The one commonly known as the parable of the dishonest steward.

Did you notice the emphasis I put on the words “commonly known as?” Sort of like “the alleged offender,” or “the accused assailant.” Each of those phrases implies that things may not be all they seem. Especially when you look at it almost 2000 years later from the vantage point of a different language and culture.

The problem many people have with this lesson is that they see this steward who’s being fired for mishandling the masters finances, and then both the master in the story and Jesus, who is telling the story go and praise this guy for the way he handles things when he realizes he’s about to be out of a job. We can’t believe that Jesus is actually praising this guy for “cooking the books” and using him as an example of how we should be. There must be something terribly wrong here.

And there is. What’s wrong is the understanding many of us have of this story and what it’s saying. Let’s look carefully at it for a minute. First of all, most translations say something along the lines of “the steward was accused of wasting his master’s goods.” Any lawyers in the house? Any teenagers in the house? What’s the key word in this? Accused. It doesn’t say that he was actually guilty of, it said that he was accused, and perhaps unjustly, of not doing his job well. And when you look at it that way, the picture changes a little bit. You might figure that if the guy’s being fired unjustly, it makes sense for the him to create his own little severance package with the boss’s goods. And yet there’s still the problem of the boss and Jesus praising him for doing this.

Well, let’s add something else to the equation here. Did the steward stick it to the boss when he started giving everyone deep discounts, or was he taking it out of his own commission as steward? The answer to this question could change everything. If we go with our common understanding that he was sticking it to the boss, we still have a problem. But if we say that he was taking it out of his own commission, we can say that our friend here was acting wisely, sacrificing short term gain for long term security. That would be nice. That would be neat. That would take away all the moral problems that this story presents. And…there’s a 50% chance that this interpretation is wrong. So as much as we’d like to deal with the nice, neat, clean version, let’s take a look at the old seedy version that we’re familiar with, to see what it has to tell us.

What exactly is it that both the master and Jesus are praising? Are they praising what we might see as the steward’s dishonesty? No. What they are praising is this guy’s ability to think on his feet, his shrewdness, the fact that he knew how to make the best of a bad situation.

One can see where these actions might be proof to the master that the accusations were false and that this guy really was someone he wanted to keep around as a steward. But why was Jesus praise this?

The answer comes from a conversation I had with Cheryl a few weeks ago.

I forget what brought it up. Maybe it was a letter in Christianity Today or The Lutheran lamenting the old news that evil people flourish while the righteous are cut down like grass. If it wasn’t a letter or article in one of those magazines, it was something pretty similar…the old complaint that “the system” doesn’t work the way we think it should. The good should be rewarded while the evil suffer, and not what seems to be the other way around. We want a nice simple equation we can understand and deal with, and right now the results aren’t fitting our expectations.

And this is because we’re stubbornly using the wrong equation to try to solve the problem. Last year Marilyn VosSavant ran a problem in her column about the chances of two different families having different distributions of boys and girls. When she showed the correct answer and how it was worked out, the mail started coming in from both supporters and detractors, and it went on for months. It got particularly ugly when a person from risk management at a nuclear power plant wrote in to agree with Marilyn’s answer and her method, and someone wrote back later on saying that they were going to send that person’s name into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as someone who had no business determining risk at power plants, because their obviously poor math skills posed a threat to the rest of us.

What was going on here was that the people who disagreed with Marilyn and the power plant person were people with basic math skills who weren’t getting the fact that this was a probability and statistics problem, that these problems need a whole different set of equations than most things we’re used to dealing with, and that while the answers may seem intuitively wrong, when you check them out against real world examples, they’re dead on. These were people who were stubbornly using the wrong equation to solve the problem.

And so it is with us and the way the world works. There is an equation that explains who gets what in this world. It’s also a very simple equation. But it’s one that a lot of us aren’t going to like. You see, it’s not based on whether or not you’re good, but instead on whether or not you’re smart.

Look around and you’ll see that except for those who have been particularly lucky, those who have met with success, whether evil or good, have by and large also been smart. Similarly, once again making exception for those who have been particularly unlucky, you’ll see that for the most part those who have not met with success, whether good or evil, have not been so smart.

It is the being smart which both Jesus and steward’s master praise. It is being smart in knowing how the world works that is the point here. And Jesus notes that it is this knowledge and understanding of how the world works that many of the children of light are lacking.

And the sad fact is that there are way too many naive Christians out there. There are too many of us who believe that faith in God is a substitute for acting wisely. Too many of us who don’t think before we act, and expect God to protect us from the results of not thinking things through. Too many of us who have traded in using our God-given brains not for the child-like faith that Jesus says we should have, but for a childish faith that expects all to go well for us because we are God’s. Jesus praises the steward in the parable not for acting dishonestly, but for the smarts that those actions showed.

A few years ago the big news here was about how The Rescue Mission, along with many other Christian schools and organizations got taken in by a pyramid scam from the New Era Foundation. As I read more and more about this scam, it became apparent how much of its ability to succeed was based on the simple naiveté of the Christian organizations that were taken in by it. When approached by New Era’s people about investing in the fund, no one thought about doing a little background check because there was a long list of other Christian organizations that had already signed up and done well. Surely these organizations wouldn’t have signed up if there was any sign of fraud. And in fact, when a financial person at one of the schools involved suggested doing a little checking around, he was told not to bother for those exact reasons. It was only after he, at great risk to his own job, decided to check things out anyway, that he found out enough to alert the Federal authorities that something seemed amiss…which indeed it was.

I suspect that a dishonest person, being familiar with the aroma, would’ve smelled a rat a lot sooner. Even a relatively honest, but slightly more “worldly” person would’ve thought that this deal sounded too good to be true, and done a little investigation into it. But the pattern was that Christian institution after Christian institution, after hearing about this plan to double their money in a short amount of time through this “Christian” investment scheme, fell for it hook, line, and sinker because of their naive faith and lack of street smarts…a combination which New Era’s backers knew to look for because it is all too common among us.

Jesus seems to be saying here that your faith in him doesn’t require having to check your brain at the door. I know this is good news to me, because I’ve seen far too many churches that seem to require just that. I like the brain God gave me, and I want to be able to use it. And I’ll admit that I may be reading too much into it by suggesting that it also means that faith in him is not a substitute for using the brains God gave you in the first place. It is perhaps even possible to misplace your faith in God if you use it as an excuse to not do the hard work yourself.

One of my favorite stories about misplaced faith and not using a little common sense involves a man who was caught in a flood. And as he stood on his front porch watching the waters rise, a woman came by in a boat and offered him a ride to safety.

“Oh no,” our friend said. “I have faith in God. He’ll save me.” And so the boat rowed away.

A little later, standing in his second floor window, our friend saw another boat come by with another offer of a ride to safety.

Again, our friend said, “Oh no. I have faith in God. He’ll save me.”

And so a little later we find our friend standing on his roof when a helicopter comes by and drops him a ladder. And again our friend says, “Oh no. I have faith in God. He’ll save me.”

Well, shortly after that the waters rose beyond our friend’s ability to stay above them and he drowned. As he stood at the gates of Heaven, St Peter could see that the guy was quite upset, so he asked what the problem was, and our friend said, “I had faith that God would save me, and he let me drown anyway.”

To this, St Peter, exasperated, said, “Well good grief man. He sent you two boats and a helicopter. What more did you want?”

What is it about our faith in God that makes some of us so stupid? What is it about our faith in God that makes some of us think that it’s all up to him and we don’t have to do anything ourselves anymore? And what kind of witness to the rest of the world is this?

Jesus expects us to use our brains. He expects us to ask questions. He expects us to check things out. He expects us to be able to think on our feet and make the best of a bad situation like the steward in the parable did.

Jesus says that you can be his follower and use your brain. This is good news to me and should be to you too. It tells you that you’re expected to question to make sure that you’re following him and not charlatan preying on “standard Christian weaknesses.” Not only that, but you are expected to use your brain to help yourself and others, and to be a witness to him by doing so, because I’m telling you, the last thing we need is more stupid Christians.

God gave you brains. Use them to his glory. Amen.

Amazing Grace

By Keith E Gatling         Sermon for June 14, 1998

Lessons for Pentecost Proper 6 in Year C

2 Samuel 11:26-12:10

Psalm 32,

Galatians 2:15-21,

Luke 7:36-8:3

One of the best books I ever read was one that I got as a Christmas present from Cheryl this past year. In fact, it was a book that I asked her to give me as a present af­ter I saw it in the holiday flyer from Sacred Melody. It was a book by one of my favorite authors, Philip Yancey, and it’s called What’s So Amazing About Grace? When I first got it, I figured I’d read a chapter a day, and finish the whole thing in about three weeks. Instead, I found myself with a book I couldn’t put down, a book I devoted pretty much every waking moment to reading, a book that I had devoured within a few days, and a book that changed the way I see a lot of things.

It was shortly after I finished the grace book that Pastor Paul gave me the list of preaching dates he needed covered for the summer. When I looked at the dates and the readings that went went them, the ones for this weekend jumped out at me because they tied in so perfectly with what I had just read and things I was still thinking about, and I knew right then and there that this was the weekend I was signing up to preach on. So here I am.

Where to begin…there are many places, but perhaps the best place is with the readings for this weekend. The reading from Second Samuel talks about David’s sin with Bath­sheba and his realization of his guilt, but doesn’t talk about God’s reaction that sin. That’s saved, perhaps for another set of readings. Psalm 32, on the other hand, goes on about the joy forgiveness. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul talks about how we are saved by faith and the grace of God. And fi­nally, in Luke, Jesus is himself involved in and tells us a story of forgiveness through grace.

Forgiveness and grace, the same thing, in­separable facets of the same thing, things which imply each other? Perhaps…and I’m going to treat them as such as I talk to you today.

Where to begin? My friend Patty was watching one of those abominable TV talk shows a few years ago. You know, the ones that find all the worst cases in society and give them an audience. The shows we all say there should be fewer of, and yet inexplica­bly their ratings keep going up? Anyway, on this show they were talking about a man who had committed some heinous crime, and a woman from the audience stands up and says that she hopes this man rots in Hell.

Interesting. Patty found this very inter­esting. Why? Because for all practical pur­poses, it’s we Christians who gave the world the concept of Hell as a place where you go to be punished for evil things. But perhaps more importantly, it’s we Christians who gave the world the concept of God’s grace and forgiveness shown through Jesus’s death for us, and are supposed to want people to seek this forgiveness so that they can be with him forever. Patty found this whole thing in­teresting because this woman, if she was a Christian, shouldn’t be hoping that anyone rots in Hell. Warning people of the distinct possibility…yes; saying that a person de­serves to rot in Hell (as do we all)…maybe; hoping that they go there…no.

If anything, we should be hoping that no one rots in Hell…not Lewis Lent, not Ted Kaczynski, not even the popular worst case example Adolf Hitler. We should be hoping and praying that at some point all come to understand that they are sinners and need God’s grace and forgiveness. And we should remember that we need it too.

In the reading from Luke, Jesus is involved in a story about grace, explaining how the woman is showing such great love because she recognizes the great role that God’s grace has played in her life. But he also goes on to tell a cautionary tale of what may hap­pen if you don’t respond to the grace shown to you with grace towards others. The fact that God’s grace makes it possible for him to forgive us all kinds of things means that we should strive to show that kind of grace too. Perhaps we won’t be as perfect in our ex­pressions of grace as God, but that’s not the point.

I used to complain to God on a regular ba­sis about my part. Yes, about my part…or rather, the fact that I didn’t know what it was. In this grand production of his, I had no idea what my lines were, what my blocking was, what my entry and exit cues were, how I was supposed to interact with the rest of the cast. There was nothing written out for me, I had to ad lib everything, not knowing what effect it would have on the rest of the people in the show.

I complained saying, "How can I do what you want me to do if you won’t tell me what it is?" I was worried that I would, with the best of intentions, do something that hurt someone else. I was worried that I might, with the best of intentions, do something that was totally contrary to what God really wanted. I had reached the point of saying, "Okay. If you don’t tell me what you want and how you want me to react in this situa­tion, then it’s not my fault if I get it wrong." I was concerned about doing it right, and not getting it wrong.

Then I read Yancey’s book, and all of a sudden it all fell into place. I was putting too much emphasis on my getting it right. On my being flawless. On my being blameless. And not enough emphasis on the fact that God’s grace was big enough to take care of any number of mistakes I made in good faith. Suddenly I realized that the point was not my getting it right, but trusting God’s grace to take care of the places where I inevitably messed up. Once I understood that, things became a lot easier for me. It didn’t mean I could now be sloppy about things, knowing that God would mop up after me. It meant that I could now say, "I’ve done my best, God will do the rest." We are to trust in God’s grace, and not in our own efforts.

Once we understand that, things should be a lot easier. It should make it easier for us to go about in our lives not worrying about messing up. It should also make it easier for us to show grace toward others, knowing that they’re doing the best they can, even when they’ve hurt us.

I first heard of Butterfly McQueen one evening when I was a kid in North Jersey sitting in the backseat of our 1966 Ford Mustang. I don’t remember where we were going, but the radio, as usual, was set to WOR 710-AM, and we were listening to Barry Farber interview her. They may have talked about her famous role in Gone With The Wind, she’s the one who said, "I don’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies," and they may have talked about some of her other movie roles. But that’s not what I re­member. What stuck with me from that in­terview was her talking about how she had started her own religion because she just couldn’t deal with the fact that in Christi­anity you could do some really horrible, awful things, ask God to forgive you, and then you were all set. It just didn’t seem right. It just didn’t seem fair.

Well, the funny thing is that in her objec­tions she got it right. That’s exactly what God’s grace is all about. It is exactly about being able to say, "Oh my God, I’ve just re­alized and understood the truly horrible things I’ve done that I can’t possibly make up for. Please forgive me for the sake of your son who died for one such as me." It is exactly about being able to say that and knowing that you will be forgiven.

Yes, Butterfly McQueen was right…it’s not fair. If you will not rest until you know that someone will be punished for some terrible deed they did to you, then God’s grace is an affront to your sense of justice, and seems like a cheap and easy way out. But, on the other hand, if you’re honest with your­self…brutally honest with yourself…you’ll re­alize that you’ve done some awful things too, things you might not even be aware of, and that you need to call upon God’s grace too.

McQueen and others like her are afraid that people will take advantage of God’s grace, and our grace if we offer it, in the worst possible way…planning to do things knowing that they’ll be forgiven. But I’m not sure that God can be manipulated that eas­ily. I’m not sure that premeditation counts. In order to know and understand that you need grace and forgiveness, you need to know and understand that you’ve done some­thing wrong. Not just that you’ve broken some little bureaucratic rule that happened to get in your way, you need to understand that you’ve done something wrong, and un­derstand the effects of it. Once you under­stand that, you’ll understand God’s grace and you’ll understand how it will not be manipu­lated. You’ll understand this because you will be changed by it, and once changed by it, you won’t seek to manipulated. The woman who washed Jesus feet with her hair was a per­fect example of someone who truly under­stood grace. The man who was forgiven his great debt, but wouldn’t forgive someone else their much smaller one was an example of one who didn’t and sought to manipulate it.

What is it that makes us Christians? Basi­cally it’s the belief that through God’s grace Jesus died for us while were still sinners, and that it this same grace that will bring us into God’s presence, although by all accounts we don’t deserve it, when we die. It is this grace and the faith in it, which is the hall­mark of Christianity, and the basis of all we believe in.

God’s grace, God’s amazing grace, is the important thing. If we believe, if we truly believe, that God’s grace is the main thing, then minor and even major differences in theology between denominations don’t mat­ter. Differences in communion practices don’t matter. Questions of apostolic succes­sion don’t matter. Differences in biblical in­terpretation or liturgical practice don’t mat­ter. If we spend too much time dwelling on these issues, we focus too much, as did I when I worried about my part, on our getting it right, and not enough on God’s grace which will bring us to him in spite of all the mis­takes we made in good faith.

John Newton, was a slave trader who was changed by grace and became a minister and hymn writer. He didn’t write "Amazing The­ology, how sweet the sound." Nor did he write "Amazing Communion practices" or "Amazing Liturgy." These are simply re­sponses to what is truly important and what he did write about. Please stand and join me now as we sing Amazing Grace.

Amen.

True Reformation

By Keith E Gatling         Sermon for October 23, 1997

Lessons for Reformation Day in Year B

Jeremiah 31:31-34,

Psalm 46,

Romans 3:19-28,

John 8:31-36

Reformation. The birthday of the Lutheran church. The birthday of the Protestant church. The day we celebrate Martin Lu­ther’s nailing his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, and sticking it to Rome and the Pope. The day we get in the faces of all the Catholics we know and say "NYAAH!"…and then count on the fingers of an amputated hand the number of Catholic friends we have left.

Reformation. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Lutheran pride, Protestant pride. Dredging up all the old reasons why we’re right and they’re wrong. Feeding the fires of a 500 year old debate.

Well, the old radio announcer in me (now there’s something you probably didn’t know about me!) would say, "EHNNT! Wrong an­swer! You lose! And what do we have for the departing contestants, Johnny?"

Well, what we have for you is better than the year’s supply of Turtle Wax, the case of Rice-a-Roni (the San Francisco treat), or even a copy of our home game. What we have for you is the truth, and if you’ve been pay­ing attention to the lessons, you know what that does for you.

While it’s true that the date of Reformation Day is set based on when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses and fired the shot that started the Protestant Reformation, even a cursory glance at the appointed reading will tell us that this is not what the focus of the day is. The readings don’t talk about an in­stitutional reformation, successfully com­pleted, that we’re on the "right" side of, and can smugly look down our noses at those who aren’t on our team. No…they talk about something different, something better, and something not quite a done deal yet.

In the first lesson, Jeremiah says that God will make a new covenant with his peo­ple, one in which he will write his law on their hearts, and one where they will all know the Lord. This doesn’t sound like an institutional reformation to me. It looks a whole lot more like a personal reformation, an individual reformation. A reformation in which the people are changed, and then perhaps the institutions and society are changed by those people. A people who have a better understanding of God’s intentions for those institutions, a people who are not quite as clueless as we’d previously read about them being (you know, I’ve always wondered how, anyone after being led through the Red Sea, could just a little while later say, "Hmm, I’m not sure about this God of yours, Moses.").

Has this day come yet? I don’t think so. At least I know it hasn’t for me. I know about God. I know lots of things about God…from many different denominational and religious perspectives. And you know something? I’m tired of knowing about God. I want more, I want what Jeremiah talks about…I want to actually know God, person­ally, face to face, without centuries worth of interpretations and personal opinions get­ting in the way. Hasn’t happened yet for me. Has it happened for you?

There are a lot of us out there who are doing the best we can knowing about God, and messing up in good faith along the way. There are people on opposite ends of the political spectrum, each with deep faith in God, and doing what they believe is the right thing based on what they’ve learned about God…and often disagreeing. Even disagreeing as to whether or not the other person is even following God because, well, "If you were, you’d obviously see things my way."

This is what reformation is about…not about a bureaucratic and theological refor­mation long done, but an individual one still in progress.

Do we boast because we’re Lutherans, the first of the Protestants (or at least the first of the successful Protestants)? Do we use this day to swell up with Lutheran pride and drag out all those great hymns by Mar­tin Luther that have served us and so many other Protestants so well for the past 500 or so years?

Paul might say, "By no means!" In fact, in his letter to the Romans, he said, "Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded!" After all, what do we have to boast about? Can we claim that we are absolutely right and the Catholics are absolutely wrong? I don’t think so. Can we at least be sure of where we’re right and they’re a little off? I’m not so certain about that either. I know that we can easily identify where we dis­agree, but can we really be sure that they’re the ones who are wrong when it happens?

So then what can we boast about? Ironi­cally, we can boast about being smart enough to know how stupid we are. We can boast about being smart enough to know that we need to be reformed. Notice what I said there…I didn’t say that we need to reform (although I’m sure a lot of us need to do a bit of that too), I said that we need to be reformed, remade by God so that we can be like the image Jeremiah talked about. We know that we need to be reformed, and of that we can boast. We can also boast of a God who loves us enough to want to reform us…no matter how much it costs. And we all know how much it did cost.

So then what becomes of all those old argu­ments dating back from the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation? Well, there are a couple of things to consider…

Did you ever get into a heated argument with someone very close to you? Did you ever say some things in the heat of anger that you didn’t really mean, and that if they were ever written down might be taken dif­ferently than you meant them by people who had no personal knowledge of the situation? Did you ever notice that you were maybe too stubborn to admit when someone else was right, and just had to keep justifying your position in order to save face, thinking that "If I give in on this, then there goes every­thing"?

Well, perhaps the same thing happened with all those things we’ve heard about the Reformation. Yes, it’s true that Martin Lu­ther and the Pope threw quite a number of insults back and forth, but the writing doesn’t always tell us whether they were being deadly serious or humorously sarcas­tic, and of course, wanting to ascribe total seriousness to an issue as important as re­ligion, we don’t even consider that maybe they were "only kidding" about some of the things they called each other in their anger and frustration.

But there’s also another thing to con­sider…times have changed. Over the past couple of hundred years we’ve learned enough from each other to be at the point where one definition of a Lutheran is a Catholic who failed Latin and doesn’t play Bingo. I think that Martin Luther would’ve felt right at home at Vatican II. Most of us have gotten past the point of saying things like "We shouldn’t do that because it’s a Catholic thing," and you know, if we avoided doing everything that Catholics did, we wouldn’t be singing, praying, or even eating and breathing.

I once read that the very opinions that would’ve marked you as a card carrying So­cialist back in the 20s and 30s are now very mainstream among today’s Democrats and Republicans. And the same applies to our Lu­theran/Catholic relationships. Over the years we’ve learned that so many of our "really big arguments" were merely just slightly different understandings based on different turns of phrases. Different inter­pretations based on different cultural back­grounds and cultural baggage, and which made perfect sense when you took that into consideration.

So what of the arguments of the past 500 years? Well, for the most part they are, and should be, ancient history. None of us now would think of carrying on family relation­ships based on a feud from four generations ago, and yet there are many of us who still insist on going back 500 years to make use­less Lutheran/Catholic distinctions.

But back to that individual reforma­tion…what today is really about. When I first glanced at the Gospel reading for to­day, I assumed that there were another few sentences in it that I was looking forward to using and talking about. When I later read it more closely, I found out that those sen­tences weren’t there, but were, in fact in similar passages in Luke and Matthew. It’s where John the Baptist is amazed by the crowds of people coming to him to be bap­tized and said, "Don’t say to yourselves ‘Oh, but we have Abraham as our ancestor,’ be­cause God is able to make new descendants for Abraham from these stones!"

It would’ve tied in perfectly with that Lu­theran pride thing. So many of us say, "But we’re good Lutherans, surely we please God." And yet before us there were those who said, "But we’re good Catholics" and "But we’re good Jews." Have we even noticed the pattern? Have we learned anything from it?

Again, our salvation is not based on who we are. That has been made clear. Instead we are to desire to be reformed, transformed even. And this reformation will enable us to see the truth…a truth which will in some cases show us where many of our deepest held opinions were mistaken, but a truth that will free us to serve God and each other better.

What is Reformation about? Perhaps at one time it was about changing the structure and practices of the institutional church, but as you’ve figured out by now, I don’t think that’s what it’s about anymore. Because you see, changing the structure doesn’t neces­sarily change the hearts of the people. No…the good news of Reformation is that we’re looking at the kind of reformation that Jeremiah spoke about…one where we are changed, and then we change the church and the world around us.

And I want you to start thinking of ref­ormation in this way too. Not as a day that celebrates a done bureaucratic and theologi­cal deal, not as a day on which we try to draw attention to ourselves for being Lu­therans (especially among those Catholics we know), but instead as something that we can look forward to having happen to each of us…that we might no longer teach each other or say to one another ‘Know the Lord,’ be­cause we will all know him, from the least to the greatest, and he will forgive our iniquity and remember our sin no more.

This is the good news of reformation!

Wisdom

By Keith E Gatling         Sermon for August 7, 1997

Lessons for Pentecost 13 in Year B

Proverbs 9:1-6,

Psalm 34:9-14,

Ephesians 5:15-20,

John 6:51-58

Wisdom. One of my favorite words in the Bible. One of my favorite concepts. One of the things I desire most…for everyone. But if I can’t have that, I’ll settle for the winning lottery numbers.

Wisdom and intelligence. Being wise and being smart. Wisdom and smarts. Even though we tend to use the terms interchangeably in English, they really are two separate ideas, two different concepts. And interestingly enough, they are in Hebrew and Greek too.

Greek has sophia and gnosis. In English we have wisdom and intelligence, or their adjective forms wise and smart.

Okay, so enough with the English lesson already. What’s the big difference? Well, the difference to me, and I’ll admit right up front that it’s not one that’s consistently followed in the Bible, is what you do with the information you have. The smart kid knows how to break into everyone else’s computer account without being caught or even leaving any signs of the break-in. The wise kid has the exact same knowledge, but also knows that she shouldn’t do it.

The smart person knows how to get The Disney Channel or HBO for free by building a converter box out of parts from Radio Shack. Again, the wise person knows not to. But not only that, the wise person also understands why he shouldn’t do it.

The smart CEO knows that cutting employees will reduce costs and raise the company’s stock price. The wise one understands that there are other implications and that there may be better ways to do this than a massive bloodletting.

It seems that intelligence is only half the equation. Wisdom is so much more. Wisdom is intelligence with a conscience. It’s intelligence with a knowledge and intimate understanding of the consequences of using that information. Wisdom, or at least my definition of it, includes a feeling of responsibility for the proper use of the knowledge you have. Wisdom is intelligence used in the service of God.

Proverbs says that wisdom has gone out and invited people to feast at her table. Calling in those who lack understanding so that they may gain wisdom and live. Ah, but how many of us who lack understanding realize it. Or how many of us who realize it really want to admit it? How many of us are wise enough to realize that we’re fools?

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says to walk not as fools, but as wise. He says "don’t be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is." This seems to fit in with my definition of wisdom…learn God’s will and use the other knowledge you have in accordance with it!

The psalm doesn’t mention wisdom specifically at all, but if you look at it carefully, what is it that the psalmist is talking about but a wise person.

And then there are the people in the Gospel reading. They were no idiots. They knew that Jesus couldn’t give them his flesh to eat…that is where flesh is strictly defined as the epidermis, the dermis, and some muscle tissue. But maybe they weren’t wise enough to see past the literal meaning to something different that Jesus meant. Perhaps they weren’t wise enough to say, "Excuse me. I’m confused. I really want to understand this, so could you go over this again for me?"

And yet, in this world true wisdom is often not its own reward…at least not in the short run. One need only look at Jimmy Carter to see this. This poor guy has been saddled with the title "the best former president the country ever had," a title he really hates. People only began to really appreciate his wisdom after they voted him out of office. And yet I can safely say without tipping my hand as to my political affiliation (and I’m not dogmatic on either side) that most people now would prefer Carter to anyone we’ve had since. We are now, almost 20 years later, able to recognize the wisdom in some very unpopular decisions he made. We are also now able to recognize the foolishness in some very popular decisions made by subsequent presidents.

Wisdom says, "Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. Forsake foolishness and live." Jesus says, "I am the living bread from Heaven…and my blood is drink indeed." What is he telling us here? He is our wisdom. If we seek him we seek wisdom and understanding. If we seek to do his will, then we seek to do what is truly wise and not merely smart, what benefits everyone and not just ourselves.

I said at the beginning that I want wisdom…for everyone. And I think that now that you understand my meaning, and what I think the Bible’s meaning is, you’ll understand when I say that I want this wisdom even for…and maybe even especially for…my enemies and those who hate me. After all, if they are wise, truly wise, and not just smart or shrewd, can they hate me or hurt me?

And so I ask God to grant wisdom not only to those whom I’ve entrusted to look out for me…people like Roy Bernardi, George Pataki, Bill Clinton, Pastor Paul, and Pastor Seibert to name a few…but also for those who are my sworn enemies and enemies of those I hold dear; Saddam Hussein, Moamar Gaddaffi, members of the IRA, and all manner of zealots and terrorists.

And yet, asking for wisdom for those who hate me or merely drive me crazy doesn’t just mean converting them to my point of view. Because you see, what is perhaps most important is that I ask God to give me wisdom too. The wisdom to be able to see when someone else is right, and to be able to accept correction even from them.

And so what I want perhaps more than anything else in the world is wisdom for everyone, because I believe that from wisdom comes love, comes peace, comes sharing, comes understanding.

But like I said before, if I can’t have that, I’ll settle for this week’s winning lottery numbers.

God Had Other Plans

Lessons for Pentecost  16 in Year A

Genesis 50:15-21

Psalm 103:[1-7] 8-13

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

It was a quiet evening in the beginning of June, at the end of his sophomore year. He had just come back from spending a month in Europe with the choir, and would only be home for a week before heading back up to the university for a Summer job.

It was a quiet evening in the beginning of June…until his father came home…then it started…another one of those arguments. No one remembers what triggered it, or what the argument was about, but as usual, it got ugly fast, and sides were drawn. On one side you had him, his mother, and his sister. On the other was his father.

As the arguing continued, his father said one thing, he said another, and then it came…that dreaded line that his father had used on him so many times before…

“Well, if that’s the way you’re going to be, then I won’t pay for college.”

That was it. He had had it. He was tired of being controlled and threatened with that line, and he decided to put an end to it right then and there, and he responded, “Then don’t!”

With those two words, his father’s power over him had been forever lifted, but as he returned to the university for his Summer job, he had no idea what he was going to do about the Fall.

Even though you meant to do harm to me, God intended it for good.

Joseph said this to his brothers. The brothers who had originally planned to kill him, and instead managed to get him sold into slavery in Egypt. The very brothers who plotted, one way or another, to destroy his life.

He said, “You meant to ruin me, but God used your actions and my new situation for good.”

If you know the story, then you know that it was because Joseph had been sold into slavery that he ended up in Potiphar’s household, and then in prison as a result of false accusations made by Potiphar’s wife. It was because he was in prison that his ability to interpret dreams came to the attention of Pharaoh. And it was because he was able to interpret Pharaoh’s dream that he was able to plan for the coming famine, and have enough food in storage not only for Egypt, but for others, including the very brothers who wanted to kill him.

God used the mean spirited actions of Joseph’s brothers (and come to think of it, Potiphar’s wife) for a good purpose, and as a result Joseph forgives them and doesn’t hold it against them, because he sees the good that has happened as a result.

Can you forgive like that? Can I? For the answers to these questions, let’s get back to our friend here who’s just left home after that huge bloody argument with his father.

Had that heated exchange in June of 1976 never happened, our friend probably would’ve graduated with the rest of his class in 1978, and who knows where he’d be now. But because that exchange did happen, we do know where he is now. We know this because I’m that person.

You see, because of that evening in June, I ended up spending the next six years working full time at the SU Library and going to school part time. Had I not spent those extra four years at SU, I would never have had many experiences which I treasure to this day. I never would’ve traveled with the choir as much as I did, and I never would’ve become the musical director for SU’s annual Goon Show. I would never have met the people who led me to Lutheran Campus Ministry, and had I never joined Lutheran Campus Ministry, I never would’ve met two of my closest friends, Roxi Kringle and Cheryl Kutscher. And of course, had I not met Cheryl Kutscher, none of us would’ve met Devra. I also wouldn’t be here at King of Kings…as a choir member who for five years got to fulfill his dream of directing a choir, as a Sunday School teacher, and as a deacon sharing this with you now. And this is the short list.

I look back at all the wonderful things in my life over the past 20 years, and I’m able to see that God used that ugly night in 1976 to make them happen.

And knowing this, I can say to my father, as Joseph said to his brothers, “You meant this for evil, but God had other things in mind. God had better things in mind. Things that might not have happened were it not for what you did. And therefore, I forgive you.”

Make no mistake, it’s not easy to forgive like this, especially if you’re still busy spending time dwelling on the bad things that others have done to you. It’s not easy if you can’t or won’t see any good that God has allowed to come into your life as a direct result of how others have tried to work against you. It’s especially hard if you’re just at the beginning of your story. But if you can see the good, if you will look for it, then it can become easier to forgive like this, and I’m asking you to look.

Instead of continuing to dwell as an adult on how your parents’ divorce hurt you as a kid, ask yourself if God has used that experience to make you a better spouse to your mate and a better parent to your children.

Instead of continuing to dwell on the person higher up in the food chain at your old job who forced you out while protecting someone who was incompetent, ask yourself if God has used that experience to lead you to a more satisfying career that was better suited to the gifts he gave you.

God used the evil that was done in Joseph’s life, and in mine for a greater good, and we know how he used the evil done in the life of his own son, Jesus, for the greatest good. Surely these aren’t isolated incidents. Surely these aren’t the only three lives in which God has turned evil to good. Look for those situations in your own lives, so that you too are able to say…

You meant it for evil, but God had other plans. I forgive you.