Sunday, October 22, 2017

Sermon: Tell Me About God

(Delayed posting)
Listen here



Sermon Preached at
St. Aidan’s Michigan Center, MI
October 22, 2017 Proper 24A
20th Sunday After Pentecost
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse, Director of Whitaker Institute
Episcopal Diocese of Michigan
For readings click here

I speak to you in the name of one God
Source of all being, incarnate Word and Holy Spirit. Amen

Good morning!  My name is the Rev. Vicki Hesse
and I bring greetings from the Diocese of Michigan
in my new role as the Director of the Whitaker Institute. 
The Whitaker Institute is the teaching arm – 
the Christian formation department - of the Bishop’s office. 

How many of you have participated in a Whitaker program?

Our vision is to provide learning opportunities,
beyond what individual parishes can,
in developing and forming disciples
who do God’s work in the world. 

Whitaker offers three main programs:

First, Academy for Vocational Leadership –
a monthly “weekend” seminary run collaboratively with
Dio E Mich and Dio W Mich.
The Academy provides theological training
for people seeking ordination (deacons and priests)
with Saturday bible, history and theology classes
open to anyone who wants to learn more.

Second, Exploring Your Spiritual Journey – EYSJ
a twice-monthly circle of people
listening with the ear of their heart
how God is calling them to serve in the world.
Third, Safeguarding courses –
regular courses designed to teach church ministers (lay and ordained) about protecting the safety and dignity
of children and vulnerable adults. 

Whitaker offers other enrichment courses
that arise through commonly expressed needs –
such as the Epiphanies Conferences
a speaker series for church geeks
who love to wrestle with meaty theological topics
OR
Such as pilgrimage to provocative places
for people seeking to refuel their spiritual life,
such as the Holy Land tour offered
last November (and will again in 2019). 
All these programs are supported by scholarships so that money is never a stumbling block to participation in learning.

I would like to thank David Hite, Sr. Warden,
for inviting me here today to be with you
and to worship God together. 
~~~~~~ 

Today is the National Observance of Children’s Sabbath-[1]
A day to join other faith communities
in commitment to care, to protect and
to advocate for all children.
A day to learn from children about God.

Several years ago, I heard this story of
a three-year-old girl,
firstborn and only child in her family.
When her mother became pregnant again,
the little girl was very excited
about having a new sibling.

Within a few hours of her parents
bringing a new baby boy home from the hospital,
the girl made a request:
she wanted to be alone with her new brother
in his room / with the door shut.
This made her parents a bit uneasy,
but they had an intercom system
so, they listened in from another room.
There they heard their three-year-old daughter
pleading with her three-day-old brother:

 Tell me about God,”
She said,
“I’ve almost forgotten.”[2]
This “haunting and evocative” story suggests
that while we know
we come from God early in life,
we somehow, eventually forget. 

We know this from our own experience
and we know this from a research study
asking young people the question
Have you at times felt that God is particularly close to you?”
The study found diminished recall:
84% of 1st graders said “yes”,
Only 47% of 11th graders said yes… less than half.[3]
This is not just a modern phenomenon. 

For in today’s Gospel,
Jesus’ response to the entrapment question
suggests that his opponents
might have forgotten about God.

Jesus listened with the ear of his heart to the
“the question behind the question”
that his opponents ask –
something like the 3-year old’s plea,
Tell us about God – we’ve almost forgotten.”

The Pharisees in this case
took initiative to conspire with the Herodians. 

These strange bedfellows cooperated
only because of their mutual desire
to remove Jesus.

So they asked the now-famous question:
“Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”

We can learn something from the context of the time:
See, the Pharisees were committed
to every detail of the Jewish law. 
They resented and resisted
the “census” or “head” tax that
Rome had imposed on Judea -
not only for the occupation the tax represented,
but also because the tax could only be paid
with a coin minted by Rome. 

The coin itself had this inscription,
“…Tiberius Caesar,
august son of divine Augustus, high priest,”[4]
thus violating the first and second commandments:
the ones about having “no other gods” and
having “no graven images...”.

Then we have the Herodians,
followers of Herod Antipas, Governor and
ruler of that region.
The Herodians, needless to say,
supported paying the tax to Caesar.

So the plot thickens, as we know:
*The Pharisees hoped Jesus would say yes,
(proving to the Jewish community that he was a
Roman sympathizer and blasphemer).
*The Herodians hoped Jesus would say no,
(proving to that he committed treason or even sedition – 
inciting the people to rebel against Rome).

And therein we find Jesus in a dilemma.
It seemed he was trapped.

But wait! This is not just a first century challenge.

Our “opponents,”
whether society or culture or family,
confront us with dilemmas all the time,
making it seem that we are trapped.

What do we do when allegiance to our “Caesar”
conflicts with our allegiance to Christ?

What do we do when the God we serve
and the government to which we have sworn allegiance
pull us into divided loyalties?

How shall we Christians (who follow the Prince of Peace)
respond to calls for war?

How shall we Christians respond
to immigrant refugees and their families,
now split up, who wait while their asylum case
lingers in the courts?
What do we do when the God we serve
and the family of which we are a part
pull us into divided loyalties?

We are faced with these dilemmas all the time.
It seems we are trapped, like Jesus was.

Well, the solution that Jesus offered amazed them. 

Tell us about God – we’ve almost forgotten.” Still hung in the air…

Jesus reminded them
about God and God’s sovereignty –
about the breadth and depth of God’s creative power. 
“Give (more accurately, render) …
to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s
and to God the things that are God’s.”

In Greek, the word for “render” apodidomi  means
“to give what is due by obligation.”
Thus, Jesus suggested a dual allegiance –
to give to both what is due by obligation;
the obligation to live fully
into the teachings and commands of God
and
the obligation to live lawfully
with the government under whose laws
they live. 
Neither side could be dismissed.
Neither side could be “right.” 
For in fact, it’s all God’s. 

Jesus reframed the whole issue
With a “both/and,” not “either/or” solution. 
Jesus reminded them about God,
the creator of all things,
who also created Caesar.

Jesus transfigured their perspectives.

And Jesus transfigures our perspectives. 
Jesus reminds us, in this text, that  
God is the creator
and we are the created. 

By living fully AND by living lawfully,
giving what is “due by obligation,”
we become citizens of both
an earthly realm
and a spiritual realm. 

And, in the midst of those dilemmas that contradict,
God, in Jesus, is right here. 
God, in Jesus, places us in a position
to dance with these choices. 
God, in Jesus, empowers us
to choose wisely as we can or
to sit and wait
until an answer arises from the Holy Spirit.  

(speak slowly)
Trappist Monk Thomas Merton once wrote,
“God makes us ask ourselves questions most often
when [God] intends to resolve them. 
God gives us needs that [God] alone can satisfy
and awakens capacities that [God] means to fulfill. 
(go slowly)
Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation,
leading to a new birth and a mystical regeneration.”[5]

Any perplexity is liable to be a spiritual gestation

Merton juxtaposed the moral and the mystical life
By recognizing contradictions.
He said,
“When we move ourselves as [humans],
we end up hanging on one horn of the dilemma
and hoping for the best. 

But when we are moved by God, mystically,
we seem to solve the dilemma in ease and mystery,
by choosing at the same time both horns of the dilemma
and no horn at all and always being perfectly right.”[6]

Do you have dilemmas in your life? We all do.
When we invite Jesus into our dilemmas,
Jesus transfigures our perspectives
with the sovereign presence of God.

Today’s Good News is that God, in Jesus,
often appears
in the midst of dilemmas,
in the midst of trick questions,
in the midst of a child’s plea,
in the midst of –
well, the stuff of life
that we humans can’t solve
and can’t make sense of.

God resolves contradictions,
which are not just our dilemmas, but God’s too. 

It’s all God’s. 
And in God’s abundant, creative and generative love,
solutions are found.
Joy is spread.
Hope is at hand.
Suffering is transformed.
If you don’t believe that,

Just find a child and plea to her:
“tell me about God, I’ve almost forgotten!”

Amen




[2]  Story excerpt from Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith (San Francisco, HarperCollins, 2003) p.113, note 21. Borg gives additional credit to a couple who first shared the story with him and to Parker Palmer who tells a similar story in one of his many, fine books.

[3] Borg, ibid., p. 114, note 22: K. Tamminen, “Religious Experiences in Childhood and Adolescence,” in International Journey for the Psychology of Religion 4.61-85 (1994), 61-85. This study is reported in Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi and Michael Argyle,  Religious Behavior, Belief and Experience (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp.149-150.

[4] Richard E. Spalding, “Pastoral Perspective,: Feasting on the Word: Year A, (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p.190

[5] Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas: The Day by Day Experiences and Meditations of a Trappist Monk, (Garden City, Image Books Edition/Doubleday, 1956), p. 186


[6] Merton, ibid. p. 273

No comments:

Post a Comment