A Sermon by The Rt. Rev. Drew Smith: Proper 20 Year C
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Trinity Church Hartford 18th after Pentecost September 18 2016
Proper 20 Year C
Maybe I’ve been seeing too much about the presidential campaigns. They are everywhere — newspapers, radio, TV — you can’t get away from it. Listen again to words we read this morning written down from Jeremiah’s preaching:
18 My joy is gone, grief is upon me,
my heart is sick.
19 Hark, the cry of my poor people
from far and wide in the land:
‘Is the Lord not in Zion?
20 ‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved.’
21 For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there anyone to bring healing?
I have to tell you that when I first read this section of the eighth chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, what immediately rushed into my mind was: he’s talking about us. The is nation. The United States. Right now. In the crumbling and destructive throes of this presidential election.
Right away, t0 be clear: our plight is nothing, nothing like what Judah faced in the days of Jeremiah. In the early sixth century BCE, Jerusalem and all Judah, the whole people, was under vicious attack and deprivation from military siege by nations far more powerful than they, and ultimately thousands were to to be slaughtered, Jerusalem destroyed, (read again Psalm 79) and most of those left were force-marched into exile. It was the people as a whole who had gone astray, Jeremiah claimed — leaders, priests and people — and every individual no matter who was to be swept up into the military cataclysm that was to come.
The catastrophic image of the present that comes to mind is the horrendous chaos of destruction and slaughter by many nations that afflicts Syria, may God have mercy.
Our plight is nowhere near what was happening in Judah, or is happening now in the Middle East. But as Judah had gone astray, so haven’t we as a nation, a people, also gone off track?
Have we in recent years as a nation every been so internally dispirited and antagonistic? To listen to interviews of potential voters, many don’t know for whom to vote. Some will vote feeling resigned to poor choices, some will swallow very hard and vote reluctantly in the unspecified hope of “change,” some will swallow very hard and vote in the hope that present policies will at least continue. Others may vote for outside candidates. Many will cross party lines, Many will not vote at all.
Both major candidates running, running to be President, have each in his or her own way spun lies and distortions — some blatant, some unthinking, some half-truths. Misinformation. Threats. Prevarications. Hidden information. Name calling. Inconsistency. Insinuations. Provocations. False promises.
Where is the enthusiasm for elections this year? Where are the bumper stickers, and lawn signs? Where is transparency and where is truth?
And, where is the vision??
18 My joy is gone, grief is upon me,
my heart is sick.
19 Hark, the cry of my poor people
from far and wide in the land:
21 For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there anyone to bring healing?
Are we off the track, as a nation? I think that in all of history we’re never completely “on the track,” — that’s an impossibility in this world. We’re always off, but now it just seems that something more and vital has drained out of us.
As Christians, how do we know where we are, how do we understand such things?
In Jesus’s day, one way that the faithful grappled with reality was to actually draw a line — a dangerous thing, but a line — between those they understood to be living in darkness and those living in light. The distinction — sons of darkness and sons of light — is a core teaching of some of the Dead Sea scrolls we think were central to the Jewish Essenes. Paul frequently referred to conversion as coming out of the darkness into the light, and then living in the light rather than the darkness.
And here in today's gospel reading from Luke 16, Jesus spun the strange story of the wicked servant who kept his job and remained in his good graces — and he did that by cheating his master of half his income! And he was then commended by his master! They knew the ways of the world; they understood each other. (The ways of the world, children of darkness at work) Jesus said, the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the children of light. He then exhorted and chided his listeners: “If children of this world learn to be so shrewd at getting by in this world, why is it that children of light don’t learn to get along with God in the big things and the little things of life?” (That’s a pretty free interpretation…)
Maybe it would be helpful if we were to think more clearly of ourselves, when the world is all muddled up in its ways, as “Children of Light” — people who amidst all that happens, as the collect prays, first love things heavenly. Or, as our Presiding Bishop put it in his most recent YouTube, we are people who when the Gospel is processed down the aisle to be read, we turn to face it, to learn from it, for it’s the center of our lives.
Then, choosing to walk as a child of the light, wanting to follow Jesus, — no one can serve both God and wealth, light and darkness — each of us lives to bring that light into darkness. “Make me a blessing for someone today.” For here the saying holds true: if we are not part of the solution, we are part of the problem.
How?
Prayer. Let’s start there. How many of us are praying for Donald, and Hillary, and other candidates in the shuffle, and for the nation? Every day. We heard it in the exhortation to Timothy ready this morning. Listen again:
1”First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings should be made for everyone, 2for kings (read President, and candidates) and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. 3This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, 4who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of divine truth.”
(A good form for prayer is the text of Hymn 600-601 which we sang just before the Gospel.)
And, Think and Learn: from Scriptures, from our traditions, from our godly conversation, meditation, extract and cherish the principles of godly living as we have them in Christ, so they become part of the very essence, the soul, of who you and we are together — growing up, together, into the full stature of Christ.
Also, See and hold the vision of God’ purpose for all the world, the vision that we have in faith, for the peaceable realm of God here, lion lying down with lamb, carrying a picture of God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven. The key of forgiveness. The essential of divine love. Compassion for the dispossessed, the poor. The hope, which is above optimism, for wars to cease in all the world.
And then of course, “just do it.” Can we every day consciously live the light of our faith so openly, in the face darkness wherever darkness presents itself, that by our witness and deeds and invitation the light permeates more and more of the world? Serving rather than standing by. That’s the kind of change I hope you and I are ready to work for.
And here a heavy warning. If we in our minds or conversation were to draw a heavy magic marker line between children of light and children of darkness, in our arrogance we surely ourselves would have fallen over to the dark side. For some do that — exclude those who are different, who look different or who believe and speak and dress differently. Or withdraw and keep to themselves. Truth is, and Jesus indicates in his story I believe, that none of us is completely “on the track,” and each of us is assured of salvation only through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To draw that line would be to betray the very divine love in which we are called to live and serve.
If we resonate with the lament of Jeremiah in the gloom and rancor which afflict our country in this unique political season, remember, Jeremiah did more than weep: he brought God’s
word. Jesus too brought God’s word, to the world. Just as surely, rather than only lamenting, we have something — someone — to offer, for we’ve been given balm for Gilead through the God whom we know and seek to serve as we live in the midst of these times in our world.
Search and grow in the faith. Shine with the vision. Serve our neighbors. Pray for our nation, our leaders and those who seek to lead us. In everything, bring light into the darkness. Oh yes, do vote.
Grant us, Lord, not to be anxious about earthy things, but to love things heavenly, and to hold fast to that which shall endure, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.