@EUCC Sermons

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, and the first day of a new year on the Christian calendar. The season of “Advent” is a time of “waiting,” “watching,” and “preparing” for Christmas. We decorate our homes and churches. We light Advent candles, create nacimientos, sing carols, practice the Christmas Pageant, and trot out ancient family recipes, cook for days, and put on a few pounds along the way.

Theologically speaking, Advent is a time when we live in the “already-not-yet.” On the one hand, we are already aware and celebrate the good news that Christ was born over 2000 years ago, and on the other, we are keenly aware that the mission of Christ has not yet been fulfilled.

As long as wars rage, injustice prevails anywhere, and hopes are dashed—we live in the not-yet of Advent. We live between the time when some of what was proclaimed by the prophets and evangelists has already been fulfilled, and the time when those visions will be completely realized.

The sharp contrast between what is and what will be is painful. That pain is felt most acutely by people whose nations are at war, those who live in poverty, those who are gravely ill or infirmed, those who are grieving, and those who are enduring great injustices. 

On the face of it, “The Great Judgment” in Matthew 25 suggests that there are two kinds of people in the world: sheep and goats. The sheep take care of the vulnerable and are going to heaven. The goats do not, so they are destined to hell. 

I confess, on my less charitable days, I feel drawn to this literal interpretation of Matthew 25 even though I don’t think it’s correct. I’m drawn to it because I'm sick and tired of watching vulnerable people suffer.  

While I do think that God sides with the vulnerable, I think that taking a literal interpretation of The Great Judgment is wrong. And, it’s wrong because the larger heuristic of the New Testament teaches that we are saved by grace, not by works. 

My dear friend, the Rev. Ann B. Day, a founding member of the UCC Coalition for Lesbian & Gay Concerns and the UCC Open & Affirming Movement, tells this story about her first experience as a child of attending a family reunion. 

She recounted how multiple generations and distant relations gathered in a public park in her hometown of Richmond, Virginia. 

The smell of barbeque wafted from every grill. The laughter of children was interspersed with the clanking of playground equipment while the adults readied their picnic site for the noon meal.  

Several picnic tables were lined end-to-end to create the buffet line for a smorgasbord rivaling Valhalla. Participants had various reasons for attending the reunion, but all were united by the lure of home cooked foods. 

After everyone had filled their plate and the dessert course was laid out, the old folks circled up their chairs for conversations about the good ol’ days, and updates on the wellbeing of those who were MIA. 

The elders savored these sacred times, but little Ann—not so much. She had worn herself out on the playground, and was needing a nap. 

Instead of grabbing a blanket from the car and taking a rest under a shade tree, Ann started to make a fuss--the kind that caused her grandmother to give her mother “the evil eye.”  

The usual shushing didn’t work with Ann at that moment, so her mother simply looked  her in the eye, and said, “Do you know what’s wrong with you?” 

Little Ann was stymied by the question, and said nothing. 

Her mother broke the silence with this pronouncement: “You have ancestors!” 

My maternal grandmother, Mary Joy Chesick Thomsen, was the smartest person I’ve ever known. Correction: she was the “wisest” person whom I’ve ever known. She was the first person to tell others that she was not that smart. She had her arguments, and they had merit. Examples follow:

• She didn’t go to Kindergarten. 

• She didn’t get to go to High School like she wanted. 

• She didn’t know how to “work” any of these “modern things.” 

I listened to Grandma’s arguments out of respect, but I never agreed with her. Even when I was a smarty-pants teenager or when I was picking up those fancy diplomas. I listened to Grandma, because I knew she knew what she knew. Occasionally she would quietly share her truth, and my sister and I were smart enough to listen. And her lessons have made all the difference in my life--and hopefully others--because I have tried to pass on to others what she has passed on to me. 

It may not surprise you that I was never much of a runner--not even in high school, not even before I underwent two knee surgeries, or suffered a series of joint injuries. This body just wasn’t built for speed, yet I once had the capacity to stay on my feet all day, in the fields of Iowa, and do whatever needed to be done on our family farm.

Despite my obvious design flaws for foot racing, I was--you heard it here first--a member of the Reinbeck High School Girls’ Track Team. 

I was a member of my high school’s girls’ track team for some of the same reasons that I was a member of my high school choir. 
In the case of the choir, I could sing tenor, but more importantly, I was willing to set up and put away the risers before and after concerts. This fact is, in part, why I am president of the Eden Church Music Boosters.

In the case of our track program, I was on the track team because track included field events. For the uninitiated, the field events in Iowa girls track, since Title 9 was passed, included the shot put, discus, softball throw, long jump, high jump, and pole vault.  

My twin (Marlene) and I competed in the first three field events that I just mentioned. 

We learned quickly that winning field events, much less simply training for them, did not land a person’s name in the news headlines--not even Reinbeck, which then only published one paper, a weekly, called the Courier. What did you expect? The population then was 1800. The town is smaller now, and the paper folded years ago. (Gotcha punsters!) 

Today’s text offers us a window on an early Christian community’s struggle with grace and forgiveness. Just in case we don’t have forgiveness all figured out--or some of us have trouble remembering or acting like we know that we are forgiven.

The passage opens with Peter questioning Jesus about how many times one should forgive. The traditional rabbinic response was “three times.” Peter ventures a more generous proposal saying, “seven times.” Jesus’ response was grandiose by comparison. According to Matthew, Jesus tells Peter to forgive “seventy times seven.” The implication of Jesus’ response is that we have not truly forgiven another if we are keeping score.  

Jesus goes on to offer the following illustration: a royal official had accumulated an astronomical debt to his king. When the king demanded payment, the official begged for mercy, and was granted it. Later that day, the same official had an opportunity to relieve another man of a much smaller obligation amounting to 100 denarii.

Midian. Show of hands for those who were born and raised in Midian (Northwest Saudi Arabia) or who have visited or even touched down in a plane to refuel. Not so many, I suspect. My inlaws haven’t even been there. 

My cousin Bruce is the only person I know who has been to Saudi Arabia. Bruce was several years ahead of my sister and me in age, education, and life experience. He and his family spent all of our growing up years living overseas. 

Bruce’s dad, Richard, was an engineer and officer in the US Army. His orders were always about building or rebuilding water and sewer systems in third world countries, and places that had been profoundly damaged as a result of war or natural disasters. 

Like his dad, Bruce studied engineering and geology in college and then went on to work overseas. I was in college when Bruce landed his first big job in the Middle East. Shortly before he moved to Riyadh, he invited me to meet him for supper in a nearby city. His parents had retired to Milwaukee. My college was located about an hour away.  

Today’s gospel reading invites readers to explore two questions: who do we say that Jesus is, and what exactly is the Church? Jesus prompts the disciples to answer both. 

Jesus and his first followers have wandered to the northeastern edge of their homeland, to Caesarea Philippi, an Ancient Roman city situated about 25 miles north of Capernaum, near the modern borders of Israel and Syria. 

The city was primarily inhabited by Gentiles. The residents were dedicated to the Roman Emperor Caesar, as the city’s title suggests, and although there is archeological evidence that a synagogue existed there, the residents of Caesarea Philippi, were mostly Greeks who worshiped Pan, the Greek god of nature.

In borderlands like these, tradition and reputation do not necessarily follow a person, and the beliefs and practices of other peoples and places blend and bleed. So it is not surprising that Jesus was not particularly well known or that he and his followers might lose their sense of self and their cohesion as a community. 

The Gospel reading describes a meeting between Jesus and a Canaanite woman of Greek descent. The setting is the territory of Tyre and Sidon, located in the coastal area north of Galilee near the modern city of Beirut, a society of Arabs.(Megan McKenna, Not Counting Women and Children: Neglected Stories from the Bible. (Orbis: Maryknoll, NY, 1994) 121)

Jesus and the Canaanite woman appear to be different from each other. He was a man. She was a woman. He was single. She was a parent. He was a Jew. She was a pagan. He was a foreigner. She was a local. The list goes on. 

On first blush few would have noticed that they had anything in common. They were different in race, nationality, gender, religion, family form, political parties, and socio-economic class--just for starters. That was, at the beginning of the story. But by the end, those who are paying attention learn that they are more alike than different.